The Other Stilinski
by notwithoutyou85
Summary: There's nowhere Rebecca Stilinski would rather not be than Beacon Hills. Isaac/Rebecca, Stiles/Lydia
1. Why Sunday Nights Blow in Beacon Hills

There's no place Rebecca Stilinski hated more than Beacon Hills. Being back for the Summer and having to stay indefinitely sucked. What sucked even more was the preserve in the woods when it was dark and creepy. Or light out, actually.

Woods weren't her thing in general.

So when Greenberg from the lacrosse team asked her to go out there with him, for some reason he wouldn't call it a date and she still has no clue how the hell he got her number in the first place (oh, well), she called Lydia to ask about him first. She knew everyone and despite Rebecca being a grade below, they had bonded over owning the same brand of swim suit during a visit to the local pool.

"Greenberg?" Lydia asked, confused for a second. "Oh, right! Lacrosse team. I've only talked to him a few times at the bake sales, but he's definitely cute, but more adorable cute than gorgeous cute. Nice body. Not too bright, but whatever. Jackson hates him, but I think everyone pretty much does. He flashed some middle schoolers at the mall last Christmas and tp'd Coach Finstock's car for some reason."

"Why?" Rebecca inquired, but really didn't care why everyone hated him.

"Why what?"

"Why does everyone hate him?"

Silence.

"Not a clue. But go for it. Look at it this way: if all goes well you'll have an upperclassman boyfriend to start the school year off with."

So, there she was. In his Honda. IN THE FUCKING DARK. And he's kissing her with his hand down her shirt trying unsuccessfully to unhook the lacy black bra she picked out for this ceremonious occasion. Big mistake.

Rebecca looked over at him, trying to breathe through her nose as much as possible. It was like he was attempting to swallow her entire face. "Need... some help?"

He shook his head and smiled at her. She tried to smile back genuinely, but that was hard. The "date" wasn't exactly a date. More like a make out session for amateurs in training. But when she thought about it for a second while he was moving down to her neck, what else did she expect?

"Can we slow down a little bit?"

No reaction. Not even an acknowledgement that she had spoken. Only moans and grunts and his hands on the back of her bra.

Needless to say not being listened to was one of her biggest pet peeves.

When he went for her jean zipper with his now present right hand, she quickly pushed it away. "What are you doing?"

He gave her a confused look and Rebecca slid over to the other side of the backseat to catch her breath.

"What's the problem?" Greenberg reached for her and his mouth collided with hers for the 10,000th time that evening.

Hands against his chest, "My problem is I'm not going to have sex with you in the back of your crappy used Honda in the middle of the woods." Then he stroked her cheek with a smile and she grabbed his wrist. "Touch me again and Greenberg Jr. will be in the obituaries by morning. But don't worry, I'm sure no one will miss him but you."

He just stared back at her in shock. Opting to not spend another second with this idiot, Rebecca rolled her eyes, finished buttoning her top, and got out of the backseat. She actually missed the boys she used to sneak into her room at boarding school in that moment. "Do me a huge _fucking_ favor and never call me, okay?"

She slammed the door and checked her hair in the side mirror. It was messy, her makeup was smudged, and the asshole gave her a bright red hickey that a turtleneck couldn't hide. Greenberg was over... done... never again. Jackson was a genius as far as she was concerned.

Something snapped behind her and she whipped around to find two dark figures reaching the top of the hill. A flashlight crossed her face and then stopped on her.

Stiles looked from his half naked sister to the eerily familiar car she was standing beside. He moved the light to the plate. GBerg69. He wanted to throw up, but asked a question instead. "Aren't you supposed to be-"

"Home sleeping. I know. I went out." She answered, making sure she was covered up completely when she noticed Scott was also there. "Hey, Scott."

"Becs." He wheezed and took a few puffs from his inhaler.

Stiles shined the light in the backseat window and Rebecca pushed it in the other direction.

"You're back home for two months and already ruining my life! I can't believe you... came out here... with him. He's a teammate." Stiles reminded her.

Rebecca laughed a little, hands on her hips. "Barely. Finstock finally let you leave the bench and no one told me?"

"But Greenberg?! He's a neanderthal without one original thought in his very small head, violent also, and while we're on the subject possibly a sexual deviant. He flashed the-"

"Middle schoolers at the mall last Christmas. Lydia told me."

Scott looked at her, surprised. "Lydia Martin?"

"Yeah." Rebecca answered and rubbed at the hickey on her neck a little.

Stiles' life was a cruel joke. He'd been trying to make Lydia notice him since the third grade and the beautiful strawberry blonde still didn't know he was alive. His sister had been back in town for nine weeks and they were best friends. "How do you- you know what? I don't care. I don't want to know, so I won't ask, won't go there."

Then Stiles caught something from the car's tail lights. He cocked his head to the side and shined the light on Rebecca's neck. She quickly shoved it out of the way again. "What is it with you and putting that thing in my face?"

Stiles exhaled deeply and moved closer to get a better look. Scott moved closer too and made a face at the red circle. "God, does it hurt? Looks like he took a chunk out of like 10 layers of skin."

"He probably did. And I'm fine." Rebecca seethed, trying to speak loudly enough for Greenberg to hear.

Stiles walked towards the car, ignoring Rebecca when she tried to pull on his sleeve in protest. Defending his sister's honor wasn't how he wanted to spend his Sunday night. All he wanted was to find a body with his friend and possibly be the town hero. Was that so hard to understand?

It always ended up like this with Rebecca. Trouble followed her.

Stiles leaned over and knocked on the glass. Greenberg is ducked down in embarrassment, still in the backseat. "Dude, I see you. It's so obviously a black blob of you. This is totally not okay by any stretch of the imagination. I mean, you bring my fifteen year old sister out here for sex in the middle of the freakin' woods-"

"Stiles!" Rebecca shouted. Why was this happening to her? Fucking Lydia.

"Open the door, man. Did you even bring condoms?" Stiles pulled at the locked door handle.

"Stiles! You couldn't kick your own ass let alone his what are you doing?" She tugged at the sleeve of Scott's red hoodie with pleading eyes. "Talk to your friend."

"Stiles, come on. We still have to find half the body remember?"

"As in half of a dead body?" Scott nodded at her. "And I'm the one who's troubled. Right."

Greenberg quickly climbed into the front seat and started up the ignition. Stiles knocked on the window again. "Dude, tomorrow's a new day and when we see each other in the halls at school or at practice it's gonna be hella awkward."

The kid wasn't even turning his head.

"You're really not gonna talk to me... or answer the perfectly reasonable question regarding safe sex... or look at me?" Stiles asked the glass.

And then the Honda raced off. Rebecca and Stiles glared at each other as Scott looked on awkwardly. "We should go."

A loud dog bark made Rebecca gasp and move back. Stiles tripped and fell and Scott ran off to hide.

"Hold it right there!"

"Hang on, hang on. This little delinquent-" When the Sheriff saw his daughter he corrected himself. "Excuse me, delinquents belong to me."

Rebecca gave him a very large, overly sweet smile. "Hi, Daddy. You're working late."

"Dad, how're you doing?" Stiles asked rubbing the back of his head. Rebecca walked over to stand beside him.

"Do you listen in on all my phone calls?"

"No. Not the boring ones."

Rebecca snorted out a laugh. "I'd say they're all pretty boring." Sheriff gives her a look and a once over while he's at it. Yeah, she was dead.

After Stiles lied about Scott not being there with them, their father lead them both back to the cruiser. He leaned down to whisper in his daughter's ear. "We need to have a chat about whatever that thing is on your neck."

"Oh, it's just a- I was using the curling iron earlier"

"I may be ancient, but I still know what a hickey looks like."

"Idiot." Stiles mumbled. Rebecca shoved him. "Ow."

"Weirdo body snatcher."


	2. Living Dead Girl Woman

The morning didn't start off well. But last night didn't end well, so it wasn't a huge shock. It consisted of parental berating from her father, sibling banter with her brother - who was more annoying than she remembered, and feeling like a huge idiot for almost sleeping with a total loser.

Needless to say, Rebecca overslept half an hour through the phone alarm, spent another half hour putting on makeup, and was now going through a large heap of clothes to somehow put an outfit together.

Worrying about clothes this early in the morning was new. The uniforms at boarding school were cute and the girls wore the same thing everyday. No competition or envy involved.

Rebecca looked herself over carefully in the full length mirror and smoothed out the purple blouse and black mini skirt. The shoes weren't right. She fell onto the bed and swapped the flats for knee high boots. They're weren't in season, but looked amazing on her.

"Should I put an APB out on the rest of that skirt?"

That cop joke never got old. Not at all. Rebecca rolled her eyes and forced herself not to look at her father standing in the doorway. She was turning over a new leaf. Last night was a setback, but despite what he thought, she was attempting to stay out of trouble. "Were you always this funny or is it a new thing?" Easier said than done. Biggest flaw: being a smart ass.

"Seem to remember a conversation last night after Stiles - of all people - caught you stumbling out of some kid's car about losing the attitude."

Rebecca started shoving random things in her backpack to distract herself from his concerned eyes. "I didn't stumble out of anything. We were just talking."

"Must have been a great talk for you to wander around half dressed by yourself after. Wish I had more conversations like that."

"What did Stiles tell you?" Rebecca snapped.

"Enough to royally piss me off."

"Well, he should mind his own business."

"And he'll work on that. We all need to get used to living under the same roof again." He stared at his daughter for a long moment. The silence made her stop moving to finally look over at him. And there it was. The elephant in the room. "Think you can handle living with a couple of bachelors?"

Rebecca shrugged, even though that wasn't what was on her father's mind. Their whole relationship had become centered around playing along. "Sure. If you're nice I'll even throw something in the microwave and push start occasionally."

He chuckled under his breath, but still couldn't bring himself to look anywhere other than the floor. Rebecca slung the backpack over her shoulder and put a hand on his shoulder. She can't believe how much older he looks close up. Tired and ancient. Talking to ghosts who don't talk back. Playing along to avoid the inevitable.

"I'm trying." Rebecca said in a small voice and allowed him to pull her into a protective hug. As if she'd vanish at any moment. Like her.

He stoked the back of her hair slowly to make sure she's still there and kissed her forehead. "Just worry about you, sweetheart. You... I don't know... got this wild spirit and it gets in the way of rational thought. Want to make sure you stay safe. We need to keep you safe."

Safe. _Safe_. The word was foreign to her. A feeling that sounded nice, but was out of reach somehow.

She pressed her cheek against her father's shoulder, speaking into his bulky tan jacket. "Last time I checked I grew up. Not twelve anymore. I can handle myself." The last part needed to sound overly convincing. Please let it sound convincing enough to make the worry subside. "It won't be like it was. Promise."

He nodded and as usual used humor to lighten the _still_ unresolved moment of tension. "Just to clarify, is this Greenberg going to be a permanent fixture around here or can I look forward to never meeting him."

"If he wants to keep his spleen and other appendages in tact the latter, Daddy."

Watching him walk back downstairs to start the coffee, she caught herself sniffing the soft skin on her tiny wrist, and wondered if every part smelled like her mother, or if the uncanny resemblance alone was enough to throw her father and brother off balance permanently.

A living dead girl/woman was the person who reached the bottom of the staircase with the backpack and too-short-skirt as the only pair of men in her life tried not to stare from the kitchen. The dead, the alien, the painful memory has snuck into their home once again.

Stiles feigned subtle and polite when the spoon in his hand almost dropped into the half eaten bowl of cereal in front of him. "You, um, ready to go?" He asked, dumping it into the sink.

No one gets used to the living dead.


	3. Brothers, Friends, & Frenemies

"Sorry about before in the kitchen." Stiles said as he pulled into a parking spot at school. "It's still weird, I guess."

"Afraid the staring contest was nothing." Rebecca shrugged and flipped down the mirror to touch up her cherry lipgloss. "You should have heard Dad this morning. 'We need to keep you safe'. Safe from what I have no idea. Teenage boys with hard ons most likely." She grimaced at the smeared glue type substance that was all over the mirror. Did he ever clean this heap?

"Cut him a break. He went through a lot while you were gone." Stiles mumbled, almost inaudible. His elbow was leaned against the window uncomfortably.

"I know he did. Sorry."

"It's not your fault, Becs." Stiles reached over to rub her arm reassuringly. "Don't apologize. Just... you know... take it easy on him a little bit."

"I love you too." She smiled at him and held onto his hand. "But that's kind of hard when he still talks about me like I'm twelve, Stiles." She opened the door to get out and saw Scott riding in on his bike. "Speaking of male hard ons, you wouldn't happen to still be in lust with Lydia would you? Because that would be _really_ embarrassing for me."

Stiles rolled his eyes, securing his backpack over his shoulder. Rebecca linked arms with him and they walked toward Scott. The look on his face said it all. "That's just sad, big brother."

"Painfully aware. Nice having you back to remind me. Doesn't mean I'm giving up though. Lydia is-"

Rebecca groaned and looked away from him. "Don't say anything disgusting PLEASE."

"-literally the only girl I've ever liked-liked." Stiles finished. Rebecca reached up to ruffle his hair. Something she did when he proved to be sweeter than the rest of the boys that she knew. "God, you're so much taller than me."

"Ok, oompa loompa. There aren't any chocolate factories around here, so you might want to-"

Rebecca smacked Stiles hard on the shoulder and he made a loud animal-like sound in protest before putting her in a headlock. She wriggled her way out and spotted Jackson talking to Scott for some reason.

"Dude, watch the paint job."

God, he was so anal about his precious car. A few weeks ago he drove she and Lydia to the mall and almost had a heart attack when some guy was standing too close to it in the parking garage.

Scott just stood there with his lacrosse stick doing nothing. Like an idiot. Rebecca assumed Stiles and Scott were not part of the 'in' crowd. Neither was she really, but since Lydia was her only friend in Beacon Hills other than Scott, who was more like a brother, she decided to make things more interesting.

"Hi, lover." She linked her free arm with Scott's, smiling up at him. Again, he looked between her and Jackson and Stiles dumbfounded.

Stiles tried really, really hard not to laugh. Despite Rebecca's flaws and annoying habits, lack of self control being at the top of the list, she was persistent when it came to shocking others for her own benefit.

"Jackson, you should really be nicer to fellow classmates at such an ungodly hour. Spread the cheer."

Jackson nodded at her and observed Scott and Stiles on either side of her like animals who had invaded his natural habitat. Then his eyes moved briefly to her exposed thighs. Of course. The Jackson Whittemore's of the world could always be counted on for predictability.

Stiles shifted uncomfortably, trying to get out of his sister's tight grip. But it was no use. She wanted them to stay in the situation, so they were staying.

"Becca, hey." Jackson finally said. Better late than never. "What is it Save a Tool Day and no one told me?"

"Good guess."

Stiles looked down at her incredulously as Scott eyed him over Rebecca's head.

"This is actually my brother Stiles that I was telling you about and his friend Scott. They're Sophmores too."

"Yeah. I know who they are. Just didn't realize one of them was related..." Jackson's eyebrows knitted together and he made a face that could only be described as complete and utter confusion. "...to you. So, do you know your way around? I'll give you a tour."

"I think we've got it." Stiles told him and suddenly had an impulse to step back in fear of being punched in the face. He's sure he'll pay for it during practice later on, but keeping his sister away from Jackson's clutches seemed worth it. "I mean, we're already going that way, so it's not a big deal. Not out of the way."

"Whatever." Jackson said nonchalantly, refusing to look at Stiles and Scott again. "If you have fourth period lunch, we'll save you a seat."

Rebecca gave him a fake smile. She liked Jackson okay and he was great looking, which was obviously why Lydia was with him, but he could be a royal dick. "Can hardly wait."

"You do realize that the conversation that just took place screwed up the natural order of things?" Stiles informed Rebecca as Jackson walked away when a friend called him over.

"I don't even know what just happened." Scott commented, dazed look still on his face.

"Magic." Rebecca smiled.

Stiles waved a hand in the air, remembering what Scott called him about earlier that morning. "Almost forgot, let's see it."

Scott looked around self consciously and lifted his shirt to reveal his bandaged torso. Rebecca turned her head at the blood seeping through. "Gross. Did that happen last night after we left?"

Scott nodded and flinched when Stiles touched the wound. "ooh, whoa."

"It was too dark to see much, but I'm pretty sure it was a wolf."

Stiles opened his mouth to speak, but Rebecca was too quick for him. "Cue a fun filled fact according to Stiles second coming to Google."

"A wolf bit you?" He started, ignoring the last comment. "No, not a chance."

They went on to fight about whether or not there are wolves in California and Rebecca was bored silly until she spotted Lydia walking towards them with another girl. She ran a hand through her hair when she heard Stiles say "since the birth of Lydia Martin" and equally embarrassing comments under his breath.

"I've been looking everywhere for you." Lydia tugged on her jacket sleeve and pulled her towards the front steps without noticing the boys. Rebecca couldn't do anything except follow the strawberry blonde's lead. She made an apologetic face at the boys after mouthing "found another guide dog".

Stiles shook his head at Scott. "You're the cause of this, you know?"

"Uh huh."

* * *

Lydia talked nonstop throughout the short tour of Beacon Hills High. To say it was short was an understatement actually. Rebecca noticed that she did have lunch with the Sophomores - some new thing the administration was trying out to prevent overcrowding the cafeteria - and surprisingly enough Chemistry. She left her at homeroom and promised for the sixth time to save her a seat at their table at lunch.

The day couldn't get any worse after homeroom. She got stuck in the front of the class and Mr. Kessler proceeded to spit on her when he spoke.

That must have been a jinx because she found a note from Greenberg in her locker afterwards - again, how the hell did he find her?! - asking for a rematch from last night.

**My parents are out of town until Sunday. Text me. ;)**

That was definitely going to happen.

"That jacket is absolutely killer. Where'd you get it?" She and Lydia ran into a new student in the hallway before lacrosse practice. Allison Argeant. Another Sophomore. She kept making not-so-subtle puppy dog in heat eyes at Scott across the hall.

But that didn't bother her. It wasn't like she'd had a crush on him for like ever.

Allison seemed nice enough and Rebecca had gotten used to the fact that it was never going to happen with Scott a long time ago. He looked at her like she was some kind of porcelain doll that would break if he touched her. Why did he have to be so fucking cute and her brother's best friend?

When in doubt blame Stiles.

"My mother was a buyer for a boutique in San Fransisco."

"That's cool." Rebecca gave her a smile that Allison returned. Yeah, she was already on her nerves in a huge way. Then she heard Lydia proclaim that they're both her new best friends and suddenly had the urge to kill herself with a blunt object. Does that mean she had to spend real time with jacket girl?

When Jackson finally showed up, Rebecca leaned against a locker next to Allison. She was still staring at Scott like a piece of meat. "He's friends with my brother. I can introduce you if you want."

Allison's eyes darted over to her, embarrassed that she'd been caught in the act. "Was I that obvious?"

"Yes." Rebecca answered without missing a beat. Good karma was important. Might as well start now.

Allison laughed a little too loudly and ducked her head to play with her hair. "That would be... nice. Thanks."

"No problema."

Lydia was still trying to convince her to come to the lacrosse practice and Rebecca leaned over to whisper in her ear. "He's playing."

Allison spent the whole practice smiling at Scott and Rebecca couldn't help but roll her eyes at what an asshole Coach Finstock was. Someone needed to get laid. Lydia brainstormed with her on the Greenberg situation. "Lyd, I did cut him loose. That's the point. Did you tell him where my locker was?"

"Of course not."

"So, he's basically stalking me now, which is amazing."

"Let's not be dramatic. Other than running him over or starting a pregnancy rumor, I could always threaten to tell everyone he was bad in bed."

"No!" Rebecca shouted and then lowered her voice considerably. "I don't want anyone thinking that I let him touch me let alone slept with him."

Lydia shrugged and stood up to cheer for Jackson, already onto another task.

Then Allison spoke up. "Guys have short attention spans. Ignoring him's the best thing to do. He'll get bored."

Rebecca felt a smile cross her face. She couldn't be friends with this girl. It was against everything she stood for and it COULD NOT HAPPEN. Though her "friendship" with Lydia Martin seemed rocky at best, so she nodded at the brunette. "But how will he ever move on from love at first sight?"

Now they were both laughing and Allison brushed a piece of lint off of her jacket.

Crap.


	4. Sourwolf

Rebecca tried to keep her annoyance in check as she followed Scott and Stiles through the woods.

"I don't know what it was. It was like I had all the time in the world to catch the ball." Scott said, crossing the creek.

They were never going to shut up about how amazing Scott was at practice. It surprised her too, but half an hour of talking about it was excessive. She's the last to cross over the water and hoped it didn't ruin her leather boots that cost a fortune. Done with it already, she quickly climbed the small hill and passed the boys in hopes their voices would fade quicker if she was in front of them. "Want to remind me why you couldn't drop me at home first?"

Stiles sighed heavily, tired of his sister's complaining already. They had only been there for ten minutes. "Home's fifteen minutes out of the way. We need to find the inhaler before it's black out here."

"Right, excuse me. Wouldn't want to interrupt your date with Scott." Rebecca leaned down and started pushing leaves to the side. "What does this thing look like?"

"An inhaler?" Scott answered awkwardly.

"It's not neon orange if that's what you mean." Stiles mumbled to himself.

As she hunted for the small hunk of plastic, Scott and Stiles continued their conversation. Somehow she figured eventually she'd be the only one looking for this thing. "Practice wasn't the only weird thing. I hear things I shouldn't be able to hear. Smell things."

"Like what?"

"Mint mojito gum in your pocket."

Rebecca turned her head to look at them over her shoulder. Stiles checked his pocket, disbelieving, but the gum was there.

"Nice new trick." Rebecca chuckled and spoke in her best Yoda voice, "The force is strong with this one."

"Don't do that." Stiles grimaced and made a face of disgust.

"My Yoda is amazing."

"Your Yoda is mediocre and I won't listen to it."

"And her." Scott breathed out. He seemed uncomfortable as Rebecca moved closer to them to scope out another area near a few trees.

"What?" Stiles asked him.

"I can smell her too."

"Dude..." Stiles stifled a laugh. "Can you smell me?"

Scott shook his head adamantly. "I mean, yeah, I can smell you, but it's not strong."

Rebecca hit Scott's leg from her crouched position. "Are you saying that I smell?!" She shouted up at him.

"Not bad!" Scott cursed himself for his choice of words. "It's not a bad smell. A really distinct odor."

"Scott, I'm going to kill you!" Rebecca was half laughing when she stood up, but still serious. No one had ever told her that she smelled before.

"A nice odor!" Scott defended himself again, hands in a surrendered position. "Just really strong. Like honey and flowers. But like a lot of them. Mixed together." Now he was confusing himself and looked between the siblings who were equally confused. "Does that make sense?"

"No." They said at the same time. Stiles smelled his sister's jacket and picked up her hand to smell the skin. "Yeah, I don't smell anything. It's just... her."

She pulled her hand away from his grip. "Oh, _thank you_. I'm not even wearing perfume or body spray."

"All I know is that I could smell it before you got out of the jeep at school this morning. Thought it was my imagination or I was having a stroke until you guys came over and I realized it was you."

"Just when I thought my paralyzing teenage girl self doubt couldn't get any worse, a boy who isn't trying to hit on me-"

Stiles put a hand up. "Ew... please, can we not? Dangerously close to crossing the line."

"-tells me I smell like honey and flowers... and that it's somehow a bad thing." Rebecca finished. She noticed something small in the leaves ahead and walked over to check it out.

Scott gave up trying to explain the scent and turned to Stiles with an exasperated look. "There could be something seriously wrong with me."

"I know! You're a werewolf. Grrrrr!"

"Be serious."

Rebecca laughed a little at the thought of Scott actually being a wolf. Scott of all people, the gentlest person she could think of, ripping people's throat's out on the full moon. It was comical. "Are you boys going to help me look or not?! I'd like to get home sometime this century."

"Wouldn't want to miss Dad's meatloaf madness." Stiles said as he leaned over to start looking with Scott.

"God. Again? I'd go vegan just to never see it again." Rebecca mumbled at the ground.

"You're too far out, Becs." Scott shouted over to her. "I could have sworn this was it. I saw the body. The deer came running. Right through the clearing here."

"How much did it cost?" Rebecca asked.

"Like eighty bucks."

She brushed away another section of leaves, but stopped moving when footsteps approached. A guy in his twenties with a black shirt, leather jacket, and dark hair stood over her menacingly. He was kind of hot in a broody, scary bad boy kind of way. Startled at his sudden appearance, Rebecca sprung to her feet and wiped at the leaves that were stuck to her knees.

Derek shifted uncomfortably, taking a step back from the teenage girl. Her scent was enough to make him kill her and the other human boy without a second thought. The other one was without question a werewolf like himself. "What are you doing here?" He finally asked.

Refusing to be intimidated by this random creeper who decided to show up out of nowhere, Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest and stared him down. "Could ask you the same thing, creepy lurking in the woods guy."

"That's an answer?" Derek challenged, eyebrows raised. A thousand questions filled his mind. The biggest one being why in the hell did this girl, who didn't look a day over twelve or thirteen, smell like a female alpha in heat? The fact that she was human was obvious enough. But the scent didn't make sense at all. He heard her ask '_where did you even come from_' and is forced back to reality.

"Seeing as though this is private property, I don't think that's relevant." He looked past her to the two boys about ten feet away, who were frozen in place.

"What are you a cop?" Rebecca asked with more than a hint of anger in her voice. Who did this guy think he was?

When he took a few angry steps towards her, she moved back cautiously to get as close to Scott and Stiles as possible. They were next to her in a matter of seconds per usual. They were annoying, cliche teenage horndogs ninety-five percent of the time, but she felt safer when both of them were around.

"Sorry. She's mentally ill. It's a no medication day. We didn't know this was private property." Stiles explained.

But Derek was still staring at Rebecca with an angry look that she didn't understand. It made her step back half a step more and bump right into Stiles' shoulder. She was surprised that it actually steadied her.

"Yeah, we were just looking for something." Scott's hand moved to the small of Rebecca's back protectively. For some reason, he felt like she was in danger from this guy, whoever he was. He wondered why he was staring a hole through her and hoped they hadn't run into some pervert. "But forget it."

Derek tossed Scott the inhaler from his pocket and looked to Rebecca again. She looked away nervously. "Get her out of here."

That made her head snap back to Derek. "What is your problem?" She blurted out.

But Derek just walked away in response. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down and shake the initial fear off. "Well, that was on the awkward side."

"Maybe if you hadn't of antagonized him." Stiles said, watching Derek with interest. "Keeping the Stilinski temper in check would be nice."

"The guy was totally rude and creepy for no reason. How was I supposed to react?"

She looked over at Scott who she noticed had been staring at her since Derek walked away. "Are you okay?" He asked her with worried eyes. "I could feel your heart rate."

Rebecca nodded at him strangely. "Yeah. Thanks."

"I gotta get to work."

Stiles is suddenly excited. "Dude, that was Derek Hale."

"Creepy has a name. Fantastic." Rebecca said with a roll of her eyes. "Of course you would know exactly who he is."

"You remember him right, Scott? He's only a few years older than us. His family burned to death in a fire like ten years ago."

"Wonder what he's doing back."

Rebecca raised her hand. "I vote who cares. Can we just go before he comes back?"


	5. My Surrogate Brother is a Werewolf

"Excuse the cliche Dad question, but how was school?" Sheriff Stilinski asked as Rebecca passed the meatloaf and spaghetti platter around the table. The routine for the nights their Dad was actually home at a decent hour was Rebecca would set the table and Stiles would do the dishes if they were lucky. He usually got distracted by something else like studying or research and forgot altogether.

The boys were so used to eating in front of the television, standing up in random places around the house, or in their bedrooms that sitting down at the dinner table seemed like a foreign country to them when she returned home. Of course, Rebecca didn't really care one way or the other if they ate together. It was their father who insisted they act more like a family and less like 'people who just live in the same house'.

So here they were. Being a family who ate together. Whatever that meant.

"Same as always." Stiles answered, twisting spaghetti with his fork.

Sheriff's eyes shifted to Rebecca to the left of him. "How's the adjustment going, sweetheart?"

Rebecca shrugged indifferently. "School's school." She had no clue what answer he wanted. "Only difference is there are boys and no uniforms. Both good for me."

He grimaced at the last comment. "Well, okay then."

She noticed the uneasiness etched on his face. He still didn't trust her because of what happened in Arizona only two short months ago. But instead of confronting that head on, he'd chosen to silently pick at his salad.

Stiles gave her a please-leave-it-alone-tonight look from across the table, eyes bugging out of his skull.

Unnerved, Rebecca put her fork down. "What?"

"Hm?" Sheriff murmured, taking a sip of water.

The confused look was enough to make her blood boil and it was apparent that the infamous Stilinski temper really did affect her more than anyone else in the family. Every time she and her father took a step in the right direction, he would make it obvious that the trust was gone. But a fight at the table certainly wasn't going to fix it, at least not tonight, so she dropped it.

"Nothing. Never mind." She continued. "School was a _dream come true_. I can't wait to go back. Does that answer your question?"

Her father nodded calmly, unfazed by the outburst. He probably brushed it off as being that time of the month and almost immediately started a conversation with Stiles about going on a ride along he had promised him. Translation: Her father and brother hadn't been around a woman for long periods of time in so long that they'd forgot how to act around one.

"Nice father-daughter bonding method, Jeeves." Stiles quipped as he and Rebecca did the dishes in the sink.

"Don't want to talk about it." Rebecca warned him curtly and checked over her shoulder to make sure their father was still watching ESPN in the next room. "Earlier when Scott said he could hear my heart rate rise… he was right."

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, head snapping in her direction. He kept his voice low.

"Before he put his hand on my back, I was freaking out… scared of that creepy Derek guy. My heart was beating like crazy. Then he touched me and I calmed down. How did he know that if nothing's wrong with him?" Rebecca asked, really interested now. Scott was like a brother to her and she wanted to help him. "And the heightened sense of smell."

Stiles opened his mouth to speak, but she spoke first. "And before you go there, I do _not_ smell."

He let out a chuckle, then got more serious thinking about something really being wrong with Scott. "Yeah. I dunno. Guess we'll see how he is tomorrow and go from there."

* * *

The uneven hum of the air conditioner filled Rebecca's ears before six the next morning. Nightmares kept her awake again. They had been less frequent lately, but the fact that the dreams were so drawn out, so detailed, and most of all real voided that. She took a deep breath, remembering what it was like waking up with the screaming/shaking/rocking fits when she was eight. After her mother died.

It took Stiles some time, but he got used to them because of his panic attacks. He understood the constant fear that came with something physically happening to his body without warning. Things he couldn't control. Their father on the other hand was only a grieving husband.

During the fits, he held her tightly, stroked her hair, and tried to think of soothing words to calm her. But none of that worked until the first ten minutes had passed. She rocked back and forth, stared at nothing, and didn't acknowledge anyone else's presence. That's the part that scared him the most. Her not knowing he was there. He was helpless.

One year of the episodes, another year with doctors, and constant worry from everyone in the house was enough to last a lifetime. Waking up in a cold sweat, panting for breath, and sometimes forgetting where she was seemed like a fair trade.

Jogging helped. It was the only thing that cleared her head anymore. All the crap in her mind would fade away and there was just wind whipping past her body and a tingly feeling in her legs.

She leaned against a tree, close to making her one mile goal, and noticed a familiar face walking towards her down the sidewalk.

"Scott?"

He was shirtless, shoeless, wore boxers, and looked like he was freezing… and wet?

"H-hey." He responded, startled out of his thoughts.

She had to walk alongside him to keep up. He was shivering like crazy and walking fast. "What happened to you?"

Scott's eyes darted wildly around them towards the woods a few feet away. "You shouldn't be out here." He snapped at her. It came out meaner than intended.

"What? Why?" Rebecca asked, confused. "Scott, are you okay?" He shivered, eyes downcast in response. "_Scott_. Answer me. Let us help you. I can call Stiles-"

Scott picked up the pace to pass her and muttered over his shoulder. "Go home."

* * *

Stiles was on some adderall induced rant when they pulled into the parking lot at school. He vaguely told her about overhearing their Dad on the phone that morning while she was getting ready about the fiber analysis coming back from L.A. on the body found in the woods.

They found animal hairs and the animal was a wolf.

"But you said-"

"I know what I said, Becs, but the hairs still belong to a freakin' wolf, which is impossible, which is why I'm having a heart attack in a parking lot." Stiles told her, exasperated.

"So does that mean he's a… werewolf?" She could barely say it because it sounded so ridiculous.

Stiles shook his head. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore."

Maybe now he would tell Scott. She waited on the bleachers, watching the boys talk briefly and then Scott was running off onto the field. Stiles shot her a look and just sighed, throwing up his hands in frustration. Meaning he didn't tell him yet.

She wondered what exactly Stiles had been doing all day. Telling your best friend he was a werewolf and could possibly turn into said animal on the full moon and rip innocent people to shreds seemed like a top priority.

It wasn't until she heard her name called that Rebecca realized someone was talking to her.

"What?"

A guy with brunette hair taking pictures with a camera grinned at her. "I said aren't you in my humanities class third period? Rebecca, right?"

"Oh, yeah." She was distracted by the lacrosse practice and had no clue who he was. She tried to keep track of Scott on the field.

He extended his hand. "I'm Matt."

She shook his hand, trying to be polite, still wasn't looking at him really. But this was the absolute _worst_ time to hit on her. Story of her life.

Matt took a few snapshots of the players on the field. "Are you going to Lydia Martin's party tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it." What party?

"Want to go… with me?" He asked hesitantly.

Scott suddenly jumped over other players, going head to head with Jackson. Lydia's party. Tonight. Her eyes widened, trying to use her left and right brain at the same time. Okay, focus, he's trying to ask you out. "Sure, I'll go with you. Sounds fun. What time?"

Everyone in the stands was chatting about how good this kid was at lacrosse and wondering who he was. Some of the girls were on their feet cheering for him. It was like being in the twilight zone. This was Scott they were cheering for. Only it wasn't him.

Stiles was frozen on the bench, watching his friend in horror.

"Seven o'clock, okay?" Matt asked and was sitting right beside her. Rebecca looked over at him now, startled by his presence. He was kind of cute in a clean cut, young Matt Damon sort of way and seemed nice enough.

"Seven's fine." She grinned and took out her phone. Finstock was talking to Scott and Stiles looked really confused. "What's your number? I'll text you the address."

He took the phone from her hands, typed in his information, and handed it back. The assertive type. Maybe he wasn't as much of a geek as she thought. "Got to get back. See you tonight."

He raised his camera to take a picture of her when he was off the bleachers. "Smile."


	6. Urges and Non-Dates

Rebecca followed Stiles into the house carrying half of the library books they had just checked out. Mostly on wolves, witchcraft, supernatural beings, and anything else that could help them.

She looked down when her phone buzzed. It was a text from Allison.

**Scott's taking me to Lydia's party tonight! ;) Are you going?**

"Oh. God." Rebecca breathed. Her body tensed in a hundred different places. She stopped in Stiles' bedroom doorway.

Stiles spun around in the computer chair. She held up the phone to him. "Tell her not to go." Stiles said, eyes widening. "He's sick. He got in a car accident. He fell down the stairs. He has mono! That's perfect. Everyone gets that sooner or later.

**Yeah w/ a guy from Humanities. R u sure about Scott? U barely know him…**

"Cancer maybe?" Stiles mumbled, typing furiously. "No, that's too much… too far… people will start making Save Scott McCall shirts."

Rebecca stood over him and held out her palm. "Give me the adderall."

Two hours later, papers and open books were spread out with Rebecca on the floor. Stiles was still on the laptop researching and printing more articles. They'd concluded that Scott was indeed a werewolf. Only thing left to do was make him see the light and not take Allison to the party tonight.

"So, what's-" Rebecca read from one of the print outs. "Wolf's bane again?"

"The wolf's bane is not important." Stiles sighed. "Did you try Allison again?"

"Three voicemails. Honestly don't think it's going to matter what I say. She really likes him."

"They met like a week ago! How much can she possibly like him?!" Stiles yelled.

"I don't know!" Rebecca screeched back at him.

"Yeah, well, I'm sure being slaughtered on a first date is enough of a reason to cancel."

They both look up at a knock on the door. Stiles jumped up to open it. It was Scott.

"Get in here." Stiles demanded and pulled him inside. "We've been reading websites, books…"

Scott glanced down at Rebecca who gave him a small wave. "How much adderall has he had today?"

"Not as much as I need because of the wicked witch of the west located directly to your left." Stiles pointed.

Rebecca held up two fingers. "I hid the bottle."

"So, is this about the body? Did they find out who did it?" Scott questioned and sat on the end of the bed. Rebecca scooted over to him, sitting next to his leg.

"No they're still questioning people, even Derek Hale." Stiles explained.

"Oh, the guy in the woods that we saw the other day."

"Creepy Sourpuss." Rebecca chuckled.

"Yeah! Yes. But that's not it, okay?" Stiles practically yelled and glared at his sister. "You're not helping me."

She stuck her tongue out at him. Scott ruffled her hair. "He appreciates me."

"What then?" Scott asked.

"Remember the joke from the other day? Not a joke anymore."

Scott listened, confused. Rebecca spoke up. "He's talking about the night in the woods with the wolf. When you were attacked. We've done all this research." Rebecca motioned to the books and papers.

"Do you even know why a wolf howls?" Stiles asked, standing up.

"Should I?"

"It's a signal. When a wolf's alone, it howls to signal location to the rest of the pack. So if you heard a wolf howling, that means others could have been nearby. Maybe even a whole pack of 'em."

Rebecca shuddered at the thought and wondered who could have turned Scott. How many of them were there in Beacon Hills?

"A whole pack of wolves?" Scott asked him, incredulous.

"No." Stiles said and glanced from Rebecca back to Scott. She bit her bottom lip, awaiting Scott's reaction. "Werewolves."

Just as Rebecca had expected, he didn't believe them. Neither did she two hours ago. But now she was someone who BELIEVED IN WEREWOLVES and still didn't know how to process that information.

"Are you guys seriously wasting my time with this?" Scott sighed, standing up. "Becca, come on. You're the biggest pessimist that I know. You believe this? That I'm a werewolf?"

Rebecca placed both hands on his shoulders. "I do. Scott, it's the only thing that makes sense."

Scott moved away from her to pick up his backpack. "You know I'm picking up Allison in an hour."

"We saw you on the field today, Scott. What you did wasn't just amazing, all right? It was impossible. The way you moved. Your speed. Your reflexes. People can't just suddenly do that overnight. And there's the vision and the senses."

"How you felt my heart rate yesterday in the woods." Rebecca reminded him. "I haven't seen you use your inhaler since yesterday either."

"Okay!" Scott interrupted them. Stiles and Rebecca stood side by side now, trying to work as a team to convince him. "I can't think about this now. We'll talk tomorrow."

"Tomorrow? What? No! The full moon's tonight. Don't you get it?"

"What are you trying to do?!" Scott shouted at Stiles. They were nose to nose now. Rebecca looked between them as they spoke. "I just made first line. I got a date with a girl who I can't believe wants to go out with me, and everything in my life is somehow perfect. Why are you trying to ruin it?!"

"We're trying to help." Stiles said. "You're cursed, Scott. And it's not just the moon that will make you physically change. It also just so happens to be when your bloodlust will be at its peak."

"Bloodlust?"

"Your urge to kill." Rebecca said.

Scott looked at both of them. "I'm already starting to feel the urge to kill."

Rebecca rolled her eyes and grabbed the book from Stiles' desk. When she moved closer to him, Scott's nostrils flared and he stepped away from her slightly. Stiles clapped his hands together. "See? Her scent! You can't stand it, right?! She never smelled to you before."

"The change can be caused by anger or anything that raises your pulse." Rebecca read and slammed the book shut. "Meaning Allison. I already left voicemails and texts and she won't cancel. Not unless you do it first."

"You did what?" Scott asked, running a hand through his hair. "What did you say _exactly_?" His arms shook and one fist balled at his side.

"Becca." Stiles warned, moving next to her. This was the part of their plan he was worried about.

Rebecca maneuvered around Scott and pulled the phone out of his bag. "Call her, Scott, or I will. I know you don't want to hurt her, especially by accident. We're just trying to-"

"What are you doing?!" Scott shouted in her face. Rebecca leaned back an inch or so, but stayed there, until he lunged at her in a rage with one fist raised. Stiles managed to grab the phone and shoved her out of the way in one swift movement. Rebecca fell into the dresser in the corner of the room.

Scott had Stiles pinned to the wall. "Give it to me!"

Rebecca watched him from the ground, afraid to move. She had never seen him that angry and flinched when he threw the computer chair with a loud grunt. He seemed to calm down after a moment. "I'm sorry." Scott told Stiles sincerely and was horrified when he noticed the scratch on Rebecca's cheekbone from the dresser. "I'm… Oh, God..."

"It's okay." Rebecca assured him, voice breaking a little. She honestly wouldn't have known the cut was there if he hadn't of stared at it. She couldn't feel it at all.

"I gotta go get ready for that party."

After another apology, he was gone.

Stiles leaned down to help Rebecca off the floor and immediately moved the hair out of her face to examine the scratch. "Stiles, I'm fine. Not the time to go weirdo big brother on me."

"Well, you're bleeding. There's blood." He informed her with a disapproving tone.

"That's because you pushed me."

"To keep Scott from punching you in the face and ripping your tonsils out."

Stiles reached under the bed where he kept a first aid kit for emergencies. "Real smart going after him like that with the phone, Killer. Seem to remember mentioning a little something about letting me handle that part."

"Sorry I failed to be the Miami to your vice." Rebecca snorted. "Not my fault you were dumb enough to believe I was just going to sit back and let your rant go on for hours. The whole conversation was going nowhere." Rebecca complained, hand against her cheek. It was starting to burn. "And we both know I'm not exactly the let someone else handle it type of girl."

"Tell me about it." Stiles mumbled and said some other things under his breath she couldn't make out. He took supplies out of the kit with a disgruntled sigh and patted the space next to him. "Sit here. Rebecca, _sit down_." He ordered.

Rebecca reluctantly did as she was told, lowering herself to the bed. While Stiles applied alcohol to the clean the cut, she spotted the three deep claw marks on the computer chair. "Looks like Ikea got the worst of it."

She looked at him seriously. "Thanks for shoving me."

"Anytime." Stiles grinned a little. "It was oddly therapeutic."

"Oh, crap."

"What?"

"That guy's picking me up in like two hours for the party."

"If you say Greenberg, I'll shove you again."

Rebecca waved her hand dismissively. "Some Matt guy. Humanities."

Silence.

"His name is Matt Humanities?"

Rebecca gritted her teeth. This was going to be a long night she was not looking forward to.

And of course, it got worse.

Her Dad decided to show up, on time for once, half an hour before Matt picked her up. That meant there would be an unnecessary interrogation. Like the one that was happening at that very moment in the living room. His tone of voice was not calm or frantic - it was somewhere in the middle, like a hungry lion waiting for its prey.

Sheriff Stilinski slowly paced the floor, on the last of the line of questions. None of which she knew the answers to because (and yes, she had told him this several times) she barely knew Matt at all. Rebecca leaned on the couch's armrest with an exhausted expression. He was never going to let up until this poor guy showed his face.

"And what does he drive?"

"I've never seen his car."

"What do you mean you've never seen it? Does he have a license? If it's suspended you're not leaving this house with him driving that car."

"Why would he have a suspended license? I never said anything about-"

"It's not going to happen. Why couldn't you drive with Stiles and meet him there?"

"Dad, it's not even a date! We're going as friends and we're not even friends! I literally only knew that he was alive six hours ago. He's in my humanities class."

The Sheriff thought over this new information and his forehead creased. That wasn't a good sign. "So, this is a blind date?"

"It's not a date!" Rebecca screamed loudly into a pillow. She lifted her head and his arms were crossed over his chest. He stared her down like he would a driver who had just been caught doing ninety-five in a forty zone.

She glanced at the green can sitting on the coffee table, trying to flash him the most innocent, doe-eyed look she could muster.

"If I take the pepper spray, will you ask him the rest of the questions?"


	7. Parties and Fake Kidnappings

Rebecca was relieved when Matt showed up with a reliable car and GPS. He didn't know it, but she had given him ten points for that alone. Her father stared him down the whole time they were standing next to the car, skimming over his license and insurance card carefully. Rebecca kept one hand on the door handle and silently prayed it would be over soon.

Matt was a good sport about it all and used terms like yes, absolutely, and not a problem repetitively, eyes wandering to her past the Sheriff's broad shoulder every few seconds. She gave him an apologetic look and shook her head. It was all she could do, really.

This was her dating life now. Sitting through interrogations. Waiting patiently. Planning the various escape plans in her mind. Wondering if she would ever fall in love with someone enough that it would all be worth it. It was all very bleak and she tried to remember that she deserved it.

"So, your Dad's fun." Matt commented shyly, eyes on the road.

Rebecca laughed, not at what he'd said, but at how shy he was. He literally hadn't looked at her once since he started the car.

He flipped the station on the radio when a weird 70's song started. She stopped him with her hand, turning it back. "I like it."

"Oh… that's cool. Great. Whatever you want." He smiled at her and she smiled back half heartedly.

The spark had already left the vehicle.

The party at Lydia's was decent enough. Good music. Alcohol she wasn't carded for. By the time Matt grabbed them drinks and they started dancing far away from the pool, apparently he had a phobia of some kind, she spotted Scott and Allison nearby.

Lydia and Jackson rounded second and a half base in a corner. Gross. Now her eyes burned. Jackson noticed and nodded at her with a slight smirk on his perfectly chiseled face. Rebecca didn't nod back. It was just too weird.

She was fantasizing about what it would be like to punch Jackson square in the jaw while Matt's hand lingered on the bottom of her ass when she saw him.

Derek Hale.

He stood by the back gate and was in a staring contest with Scott. That wasn't good. Her eyes searched the area for Stiles and of course she couldn't find him. She realized he was most likely inside with the computer nerds in the living room discussing programming software. Some help he was.

When she roped an arm around Matt's waist to glance over his shoulder, Derek was gone and Scott was dancing with Allison, too wrapped up in her to be worried.

She met Matt's eyes when he suddenly brushed his lips under her earlobe. Guess the shyness had worn off.

"Oh." He pulled back to create space between them. "Sorry, I- sorry."

Scott slowly moved past them through the crowd and into the house. His face was crumpled in pain. Matt was awkwardly trying to dance two feet away from her. "I'll be right back." She told him over the blaring music.

-X-X-

When Rebecca reached the front of the house, Derek was introducing himself to Allison and claimed to be a friend of Scott's. Let's just say he looked less than pleased to see her. "More like he just met you yesterday."

"I make friends fast." Derek retorted and turned his attention back to Allison. "Need a ride home?"

Allison thought about it for a second, annoyed to no end by how the night turned out. "My date left me stranded, so yeah, that would be great. Thanks."

"I don't think-" Rebecca started to protest, but Derek was already leading her to the car. Shit, shit, _shit_! Think of something! "Can I bum a ride too? My date's sort of a lightweight. Sick in the bathroom."

Derek glared at her menacingly. Two can play at this game. She looked back at him innocently, batting her eyelashes for effect. The werewolf sighed deeply and opened the passenger and back doors for the girls. Rebecca took hold of Allison's jacket sleeve. "Sit in the back with me?"

Allison grumbled something under her breath, probably about the various texts and voicemails, and slid into the car first. Rebecca leaned into Derek before he could slam the door in her face. "If I'm not home by eleven-thirty, my Dad will have half the Beacon Hills police force out looking for me."

Derek kept his stone gaze, barely reacting to the news, and shut the door behind her.

They were almost to Allison's place and the fact that Rebecca had no clue what was going to happen next was making her anxious, hands twisting in her lap. She had already texted Matt apologizing for leaving without him. Derek kept glaring at her in the rearview mirror and she wondered why he swiped Allison's jacket from her lap, which was now lying next to him in the front seat.

"First he's your brother's best friend and this great guy who you've known since birth and then you're sending me frantic, ominous texts." Allison complained.

"I was… worried." Rebecca shrugged indifferently. "He's still a guy and he's been acting strange the past couple of days. Not like himself."

"Aww, you were worried about me." Allison cooed and playfully put an arm around Rebecca's shoulder.

Derek's eyes rolled dramatically in the mirror. Sarcastic fucker.

"I was concerned about his hormones. Let's not get crazy."

Allison smiled and looked out the window. God, she was already obsessed with him. "Scott's sweet. A little weird, but sweet." She pointed at the approaching road sign. "It's the next left. The second house."

Rebecca hugged Allison at the end of the driveway. She peeked over her shoulder at a stewing Derek, hands clenched around the steering wheel. "Will you be okay?"

"Oh, we'll be fine." Rebecca said with a smug smile and turned to look down at Derek. "Won't we, honey?"

Derek scoffed, still in disbelief that this was happening to him. He had had a plan and this smart ass, alpha mate smelling, extremely annoying teenage girl ruined it in thirty seconds or less. Glancing up at her again as she hugged her friend goodbye, another plan came to mind.

Rebecca plopped into the front seat and moved to put on her seat belt until Derek stopped her. "What?" She breathed.

"Shut up, sit there, and listen."

Her hand was already on the mace can in her purse. The other was on the door lever. This was a terrible idea.

"I could tell that day in the woods that Scott cares about you. Yes or no?" Derek questioned.

"Poor social skills are, really, it's a bad personality trait. Ruins lives." Rebecca answered nervously. Did she really just say that? Stiles was starting to rub off on her.

But Derek's face was the same. Too the point, unamused, almost businesslike. "I'll work on it." He growled and leaned in closer. Oh, GOD. "Does Scott care about you or not?"

"Yes." Rebecca choked out. He had this ability to make her on edge just by looking into her eyes for half a second. Her hand brushed over the mace in her bag again. She was too afraid of his reaction if she were to actually use it.

"Do you want to help him?"

Rebecca nodded silently. And it was true… she needed to help Scott… and also not end up on a milk carton.

Derek let out a deep breath and his body relaxed. At least she was cooperating for the moment. His mind lingered on his sister Cora and he suddenly felt a twinge of guilt for scaring her like this. But he quickly pushed that from his thoughts, remembering this was all necessary.

"Then you're going to have to trust me and play along. Think you can do that?"

"Um-"

"It will be quick and painless."

"Painless?" Rebecca stuttered and felt herself slump down in the leather seat. She wondered if she ran now how far she could get before he caught her.

"And don't ask any questions. Because I _really_ hate those. The less you know the better."

He started the car again and they drove towards the preserve in the woods. Because so many wonderful things had happened there involving her so far. Getting into his car was so stupid. Damn her conscience to hell.

She flinched when Derek finally spoke again from the driver's seat. "I'm not going to hurt you okay? This is where the trust comes in."

His words made her want to throw him from the car head first. She had to keep breathing in and out to keep herself under control. "I've never been fake kidnapped before." She murmured angrily.

"First time for everything."

When Rebecca caught him flash a devilish grin at the dark road ahead, she had the urge to throw him from his perfect car yet again. Fucker.

-X-X-

Rebecca stumbled in the dark, struggling to keep up with an impatient Derek through the woods. He didn't seem to understand or care that she was wearing four inch heels and that in itself was a challenge. She stopped short when he draped Allison's jacket over a tree branch in the clearing.

"Give me your jacket." Derek grumbled and held out his hand.

Rebecca looked at him like he had three heads. "Are you crazy?" She asked.

"That was a question." He sighed, eyebrows furrowed.

Rebecca didn't feel like arguing. She removed the light jacket, tossed it at his chest, and wrapped her arms around herself. "It's _freezing_ out here."

Derek found another tree nearby and hung it off a branch. Then leaned against the trunk. Waiting. "Make the call."

Rebecca rolled her eyes and practically ripped the phone out of her jean pocket. "So far this is the worst fake kidnapping ever."

"Not intimidating enough?"

"Was that a question?" She mocked, trying to imitate the scowl he loved so much.

Stiles answered on the first ring. She could hear the sound of the Jeep's engine sputtering in the background and the fierce wind through the windows. "I texted you like ninety times." He breathed, panicked. "You weren't at Allison's. She said that Derek took you home?"

Her eyes moved to Derek and then she started to pace nervously. "Don't freak out, okay?"

Stiles' jaw clicked anxiously on the other end.

"Did Scott already leave to find Allison?"

"How did you…? Yeah, he left all pissed off and I went to her place to make sure she was there." Stiles explained, trying to remember how to breathe correctly. "Tell me where you are, Becs. What's-"

Derek stared at her from the tree, bored now. "I sort of agreed to a fake kidnapping."

'Sort of?' Derek mouthed. She didn't bother responding to that.

There was a brief silence, the anxious jaw click, and brakes squealing to a halt.

"A fake what?"

"It's not as bad as it sounds."

"Put him on the phone." Stiles demanded in what she always referred to as his not-fucking-kidding voice.

"Listen: if this works it will help Scott control his urges, or at the very least convince him that he needs help. If he thinks Derek has Allison _and_ me he'll be even angrier. I'll be home in an hour or so, Sty, I swear."

"Let me talk to Derek, crazy." Stiles sighed. Derek was already next to her holding out his hand. She handed it over.

"We should all hang out after this." Derek joked.

Rebecca shot him a glare of a thousand deaths.

"She doesn't walk through this door unharmed one hour from now, and Scott will be the least of your problems, Derek. I am watching the clock." Stiles said.

Derek nodded. "Understood."

-X-X-

"Where are they?" Rebecca heard in the darkness.

Derek's arm was hooked tightly around her waist from the back. Fake tears on her cheeks caused her mascara to run like crazy. She imagined herself looking like a blonde, big breasted girl in a slasher movie. Minus the big breasts part.

"Allison's safe. From you. The other one wasn't so lucky." She heard Derek say behind her. Her eyes squeezed shut.

Scott looked up from his crouched position and spotted them a few feet away. Rebecca struggled against Derek, trying to make it look as real as possible. All she wanted to do was get out of this situation. Her reasoning behind agreeing to this plan escaped her. Temporary insanity came to mind.

Rebecca locked eyes with Scott and they were apologetic. Now she felt worse. "Let her go." Scott growled ferociously.

She turned her head at a sharp sound and realized Derek's fangs were only inches away from her throat. This was not what they discussed. She started to panic, chest heaving, and Derek tightened his iron grip around her torso.

"Stop!" Scott shouted at him. "What did you do with Allison?"

"She's fine. He took her home." Rebecca told him, voice breaking.

Scott lunged for Derek suddenly and she dropped out of his strong grasp. "Run, Becca!" Scott's scream was muffled as he and Derek rolled a few times down the hill, attacking each other.

Rebecca sprung to her feet and ran towards them. Derek had Scott pinned to a tree. "Get off of him, Derek!"

Derek started to look around, alarmed, and grabbed Rebecca's arm to pull her against him. "Shh, be quiet." She stared at him wide eyed. "It's too late. They're already here." He looked down at Scott and started dragging Rebecca with him. "Run!"

Scott started to protest, grabbing for Rebecca, but was blinded by a bright light. Derek and Rebecca stopped behind a tree. "Let go of me." She whispered harshly, trying to see what was going on with Scott and the three guys with flashlights and crossbows. "Who the hell are they?"

"Be. Quiet." Derek seethed. Then she heard Scott scream out in pain and saw an arrow go through his arm. A surprised gasp escaped her lips and Derek's hand roughly clamped over her mouth.

"Take him."

Rebecca struggled against Derek and a series of muffled screams poured out. He let her go and grabbed her face with both hands. "Do not move."

She nodded adamantly and he launched himself at the hunters. Two of them flew through the air and she was relieved when Derek got to Scott to free his arm. Now they were pulling her through the woods and stopped when they were clear of whoever those guys were.

Rebecca panted against a tree, eyes wild and terrified. Scott pulled her into an embrace and she noticed that the yellow around his eyes was fading little by little. The plan sort of worked, but she was still unbelievably pissed at Derek.

"Are you okay?" Scott asked her. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He was obviously in pain and his whole body shuddered. Rebecca nodded into his shoulder blade. "Yeah. What about your arm?"

He let her go and slumped down to the ground against a tree. "Who were they?!"

"Hunters. The kind that have been hunting us for centuries."

"Us?!" Scott shouted angrily at him. "You mean you! You did this to me!"

Derek moved closer. "Is it really so bad, Scott? That you can see better, hear more clearly, move faster than any human could ever hope? You've been given something that most people would kill for. The bite is a gift."

"_You_ bit him?" Rebecca asked, terrified and angry all at once. She crouched down next to Scott.

"I don't want it." Scott cut in.

"You will. And you're going to need me if you want to learn how to control it. What happened tonight when you lost control will happen again and it will keep happening. Using Allison or Rebecca to calm you down is only a first step." Derek leaned down to put a hand on Scott's shoulder. Rebecca stayed beside him. "So you and me Scott… we're brothers now."

Scott looked away from him and held his injured arm against his chest. Rebecca stroked his skin with her hand, trying to soothe him somehow, and watched the wound slowly heal on the edges. Must have been a werewolf thing.

Derek held his hand down to Rebecca. "Come on. I'll drive you home." Scott's upper arm instinctively moved in front of her. "Scott, if I wanted to kill her I would have done it already, and I certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to kill the Sheriff's daughter. We don't need that kind of attention."

"_We_ didn't do this. _You_ did." Scott's head snapped to Rebecca waiting for some kind of assurance. "If I don't go with him, my Dad will come looking for me. I'll make it back. Come with us."

Scott glared up at Derek and shook his head. "Last place I need to be right now is in a car with him. You go ahead. Tell Stiles to come back for me in the morning. I want to be alone."

"Look at me." She turned Scott's chin to face her. "It doesn't matter what anyone says or what you might think. You're not a-"

"Monster." Scott mumbled.

"_No_. Don't say that. You're still you. My friend Scott. Stiles and I-" She hesitated and he squeezed her hand. "and Derek are going to help you get through this."


	8. I See Dead People

When Rebecca took the first step into the kitchen for breakfast, Stiles started in on her about the fake kidnapping incident with Derek. She avoided him last night by claiming she was too drained and needed sleep and their Dad was in the next room.

"I can't believe you got in a car with him! Derek Hale! Into an actual car." Stiles ranted while Rebecca made herself a bowl of cereal. She tried to keep her distance from the kitchen table. "A vehicle with an engine that is controlled by the driver, a psychotic one in this case, that can go anywhere said driver wants! And out of all the things you could agree to, a fake kidnapping. Really?!" His mouth was full of Cheerios and a vein in his neck was bulging out. "I mean, I guess I should be thankful he didn't ask you to, I don't know, participate in a cult ritual or a mercy killing of some kind."

Rebecca hopped onto the counter and dropped slices of banana into the bowl silently. There was no reason to argue with her brother. It was better to just let him go.

"You just..." Stiles sighed with frustration. "really need to discuss your deep seeded, danger junkie, insanity with a professional. Because this is just- yeah- there's something very wrong with you."

"Is it okay if I speak?"

Stiles glared up at her from his breakfast.

"Scott's our friend, Stiles, and I didn't exactly have a lot of options last night. I saw Allison with Derek and for all I knew he wasn't taking her home like he said. What was I supposed to do?"

"NOT GET INTO A CAR WITH A PSYCHOTIC WEREWOLF!"

**-X-X-**

After school, Rebecca spotted Scott standing in his lacrosse uniform outside watching Allison walk over to a red Suburban. He had that lovey dovey look on his face.

"Looks like that went well. She forgive you for being a crappy date?"

Scott beamed. "Second chance."

They bumped fists.

"Very nice. How's your arm?"

Scott pulled up his sleeve and Rebecca's eyes widened in shock. She held his arm in front of her face, touching the skin in disbelief. "Pretty crazy, huh?" He agreed. The wound was completely healed. There wasn't even a scar.

"Can't believe I'm saying this, but at least there's one upside to this whole werewolf thing. That's kind of awesome."

"Stiles still pissed?"

"He yelled at me for like an hour after Dad left this morning."

"You're his sister... _our_ sister. He's just upset." Scott put a hand on her shoulder and got that look of his. Rebecca rolled her eyes, already knowing what came next. "I know you said to stop saying it-"

"So, stop saying it."

"But I'm sorry that happened. Derek never should have involved you."

"Stiles will get over it." Rebecca assured him. "I'm already over it and you came to get me, so there's nothing to be sorry for. You're not responsible for what Derek does, Scott. He's-" She noticed Scott was distracted by something across the parking lot. Mr. Argent. Scott waved at him awkwardly.

"Is that Allison's Dad?" Rebecca waved at him and he smiled at both of them. Seemed like a nice enough guy.

"Uh huh."

"What?"

"He's the hunter that shot me." Scott revealed, dumbfounded.

It took her more than a few moments to process that. Things just kept getting fucking weirder around here.

"Are you freakin' kidding me right now?!"

**-X-X-**

Lydia ended up giving her a ride home. Stiles and Scott had practice and she didn't feel like going. She watched Lydia make faces at songs she disliked and flip the stations back and forth.

"Have you met Mr. Argent?" Rebecca asked and nervously played with a necklace dangling from her neck.

Lydia huffed and settled on a classic rock station. "Not really." She smiled. "I've seen him though. Definitely DILF material."

"Not really what I meant." But she had a point. He was actually kind of hot.

"Why?"

"He didn't seem weird?"

Lydia looked over at her, confused, but still indifferent. "Weird how?"

"Never mind."

**-X-X-**

"You mean metaphorically tried to kill you, right?"

"Kill as in dead and buried say hello to the white light and pearly gates. I had to spray him with a fire extinguisher." Stiles dropped into his computer chair. "There's no way he's playing on Saturday."

"He's first line!"

"Was first line. He already pummeled Jackson at practice. Know what he could do in an actual game?"

Rebecca smirked, wishing she could have seen that. "Oh, come on. It was only Jackson. Don't tell me that's not something you've wanted to do a million times."

"This is serious, Becs. He could really hurt someone... or kill someone on the field."

"No, I know. It just sucks for him is all." Rebecca muttered. She felt bad for Scott. He'd been waiting a long time for all of this to happen with lacrosse and having a girlfriend. It wasn't fair.

Stiles started playing with his green plastic gun when Scott popped up on Skype. Scott pulled out his headphones. "What'd you find out?"

Rebecca gave a small wave from across the room.

"Bad. Jackson's got a separated shoulder."

"Because of me?" Scott asked, horrified.

"Because he's a tool."

"I second, third, and _fourth_ that." Rebecca agreed.

"But is he gonna play?"

"They don't know yet. Now they're just counting on you for Saturday."

After a few seconds, Stiles looked at the bottom left hand corner of the screen. "Is that...?" He asked himself out loud and took a closer look.

"What?" Rebecca asked, leaning over his shoulder. She reached around him and upped the brightness. There was a guy in Scott's room standing behind him.

"That's Derek." Rebecca said, almost sure of it.

**-X-X-**

Hanging out with Allison felt weird now. Rebecca knew her parents were werewolf hunters and her friend didn't have a clue that werewolves existed! And based on general responses she gave about her family, Allison was either the best liar Rebecca had ever met, or she really didn't have a clue who her parents were.

Being hunters had to be the reasons they'd moved her around so much over the years. It really sucked that she was being kept in the dark like this. Her own family were lying to her.

Scott also hadn't mentioned he would not be playing Saturday. That's all Allison was talking about.

"I'm so excited for him."

"Me too! Totally excited." Rebecca agreed and gave her the most enthusiastic grin she could manage.

"Are you going with Matt?" Allison asked, nudging her side.

"Where?" Rebecca asked, mind drifting.

"To the game?"

"Oh, no. Honestly, I can't see us spending a lot of time together after Lydia's party the other night. He's not really my type." Rebecca admitted.

Allison frowned. "Oh... sorry. That sucks."

Rebecca saw Scott appear from around the corner, eyes on his phone. Allison's whole face brightened.

"Scott!"

"Hey."

"Busy?" Allison asked.

"No. Just my Mom. She's nothing." Both girls looked at him strangely. "I mean, it's nothing. Never too busy for you."

Allison smiled. "I like the sound of that."

Rebecca gave him a look. Scott backtracked. "Either of you."

"Good answer, McCall."

Scott made a face at her.

"I have to run to French class, but I wanted you to know that I'm coming to see you play."

"You are?"

"Wouldn't miss it. We're all going out after. You, me, Lydia, and Jackson. Becs and Stiles too."

"Sounds like a party." Rebecca said. Because being the sixth wheel was so much fun.

"Save me a seat at lunch. Still have to grab stuff from my locker."

"Right behind you." Rebecca turned to Scott when Allison walked away. His face dropped and he looked like he was about to have a panic attack. "Scott, relax."

"Relax? Give me a step by step guide on how I'm supposed to do that. Finstock won't let me sit out the game. My Mom got the night off and is literally freaking out over me starting. And now Allison wants to go out on a date after and I'm just going to freak out on her again like at Lydia's party."

"What did Finstock say?"

"That I'm playing whether I like it or not, and he thinks I'm either on meth or I'm gay!"

Rebecca stared at him, confused. "Is that verbatim?"

Scott dropped his head between his knees and leaned against the wall.

"Scott, we have to think of something to get you out of this. I know you don't want to hurt anyone... but you will if you play."

Scott nodded at his shoes and walked in the opposite direction to class. Rebecca was wracking her brain trying to think of something. If push came to shove, Finstock couldn't force Scott to play. He could fake an injury, illness, something.

Rebecca stopped at Allison's locker and watched her pull out the jacket from the other night. She looked around them, knowing that Derek was the only one who could have put it there. He was still messing with Scott.

"I've been looking all over for this." Allison said, confused, and closed the locker with a shake of her head. "Lydia must have brought it back from the party. She has my combination."

**-X-X-**

_S: BHPD enforcing 9:30 curfew _

_R: Bummer ;( _

_S: Have to find other half of the body to stop Derek_

_R: Sounds like a partay_

_S: 3 heads r better than 2. Help?_

_R: I see dead people... heap jeep at 4? _

___S: ..._

_R: ?_

_S: Yeah but don't call it that_

Rebecca glanced at her phone as Scott and Stiles walked back to the jeep from the hospital.

"So, the scent was the same. Derek definitely buried the body at his place."

Rebecca nodded, already assuming Derek had done it. "He's certainly an overachiever. I'll give him that. We're at least waiting until he leaves, right?"

Stiles backed out of the lot and started towards the edge of town. "No, Becs, we're going to ask him if he has any shovels around and then see if he wants to help out."

Rebecca kicked at the back of his seat. Stiles held the steering wheel with one hand and swatted at her with the other.

"We'll wait until he leaves." Scott answered.

"Thanks for the mature response."

"After we find her, we call the cops. Derek gets arrested. The killing's stop." Stiles explained. "Need to pick up shovels and flashlights. He probably won't leave until dark."

"Dad has tons of that crap in the garage and the hobby shed."

Stiles nodded, remembering.

"So the Nancy Drew to your Sherlock and Watson." Rebecca snorted.

After two more hours of waiting in the car and listening to Scott and Stiles hum to familiar songs on the radio, Derek's Camaro finally sped off.

Scott stopped behind Stiles and Rebecca. "Wait. Something's different."

"What do you mean?" Stiles asked, turning around.

"I don't know. But it's not right." Scott tried to explain, but shook it off. "Let's just get this over with. Try and get out of here sooner than later."

Stiles laid the flashlight near the area at the side of the house and they started to dig into the soft ground.

"This house is so creepy. Ever noticed how everything about Derek is creepy?"

Stiles laughed. "Or broody. Yeah, caught that."

"Broody, moody, creepy, Derek." Rebecca chanted. She pressed her foot against the shovel and started making real progress on the fourth or fifth stroke.

When they were at least halfway done, Scott said what she was thinking. "This is taking way too long. What if he comes back?"

"Just keep going. We're basically done."

"Then where's the body?" Rebecca asked, wiping sweat from her forehead.

"Just a little deeper."

"That's what she said." Rebecca joked.

The boys ignored her.

"What are we supposed to do if he comes back?" Scott asked.

"Then we get the hell out of here."

"Obviously." Rebecca murmured. "Better question: what if he catches us?"

"I have a plan for that." Stiles said confidently.

Scott chucked dirt over his shoulder. "Which is?"

"We all run in separate directions. Whoever he catches first is screwed."

"That plan sucks ass." Rebecca retorted.

"I hate it." Scott agreed.

Stiles stopped digging and hit the solid ground a few times. Scott and Rebecca looked over at his section of the grave. "Whoa. Stop digging."

They all start moving the dirt away and there are ropes tied in knots around what is probably the body.

"Did he have to tie the thing in like 900 knots?"

"I'll do it." Scott said and when he finished a dead wolf was inside. They all jumped back and gasped. Rebecca peeked over the edge of the grave, lying on her stomach.

"What the hell is that?!" Stiles shouted.

"It's a wolf."

"PETA's going to hear about this." Rebecca said softly, close to gagging from the smell. "I thought you said you smelled human blood?"

"I said something was different."

"Might have been a little more specific." Stiles said. "This makes no sense."

Scott looked around, paranoid. "We've got to get out of here."

"Help cover this up." Stiles said, mostly to Rebecca. She rolled her eyes. It wasn't like she hadn't been helping the whole time. She took a few breaks, but to be fair she wasn't the one who played lacrosse four days a week.

Rebecca stopped moving the dirt when she noticed the purple flower lit by the flashlight. Stiles noticed. "What's wrong?"

"Wolfsbane." She pointed. "From the article."

"What's that?" Scott asked, oblivious. He really was impossible most of the time.

Scott and Stiles got into yet another verbal sparring match about whether or not Scott had seen the original Wolfman with Lon Chaney Jr. and Claude Rains. He, of course, had no clue what Stiles was talking about.

At least they weren't fighting about Star Wars again. That usually lasted for days on end.

"...the original classic werewolf movie?" Stiles asked, still pushing the subject.

"He hasn't seen the damn movie, Stiles. Let it go." Rebecca snapped.

"Thank you." Scott sighed.

Stiles gave up and followed Rebecca over to the flower. "You are so unprepared for this."

Rebecca reached down to pick it out of the ground and a rope was attached. "What the hell?" She pulled it out all the way around the grave making several circles.

"Guys?" Scott said, staring down at the grave.

"Whoa!"

The dead wolf had somehow turned into a dead woman.

"Oh my God." Rebecca whispered. "I totally called this. I said 'I see dead people' over a text with Stiles earlier and there's a dead person. Booya."

Scott and Stiles looked at her, speechless.

"What?"

**-X-X-**


	9. Supposed Dog-Like Individual

"I literally can't believe this is happening." Rebecca said, sitting on the hood of the jeep next to Scott.

"You knew what we were doing." Scott grumbled in response, annoyed.

They watched as Derek was pulled out of the house in handcuffs with a murderous look on his face directed at them. It was one thing to think about him being hauled off by the cops, but it was another to have a front row seat. "Should we feel bad for sending someone to jail?"

"What are you talking about?" Scott said with wide eyes. "He killed that girl and buried her in his yard. He's like what's his name that buried dead people under his house. Same difference."

Rebecca cocked her head, really thinking about what solid proof they had. "Allegedly."

"The smell in the morgue was exactly the same." Scott disputed, arms crossing over his chest. But he didn't seem completely convinced. At least not to her.

"Okay, Mr. Defensive Wolf. All I'm saying is there could be more to it than 'he killed that girl'. That's all."

"Why are you defending him?" Scott questioned.

"Innocent until proven guilty."

"He was proven guilty!"

Rebecca opened her mouth to contest further, but stopped when she saw Stiles standing next to the cruiser where Derek was waiting. Great. One more thing they had to deal with.

"No." Scott whispered and turned around. "What the hell is he doing?"

Rebecca waved her brother over, but he just dove into the front seat. Idiot.

"Go get him." Scott demanded in a low, panicked voice. "Seriously, Becs, go now."

Rebecca rolled her eyes and started towards the car. Stiles and Derek were talking, or more like Stiles was talking to Derek in the backseat. He just sat there, glaring, like he wanted to kill her brother in a thousand different ways.

She was familiar with the feeling.

Rebecca had to stop herself from snickering at his sour expression, and wondered why she was ever remotely afraid of Derek to begin with. He looked like a child being punished for hitting another kid on the playground.

"Stiles get out of the car." Rebecca said, leaning down a little.

Stiles put up a finger to shush her and Derek leaned towards the metal separator to respond to whatever Stiles was saying.

"What in the holy hell is happening?"

Mother of God.

Now they were in trouble.

"Daddy, um-"

The Sheriff put up a hand to stop the impending excuses. Everyone was shushing her today. "It's too early and I haven't had enough coffee."

"Machine at the station die again?" She gave him a smile.

That didn't work either. He smiled back, gently pushed her body away from the passenger door, and pulled Stiles out by his bony arm.

"Ow, ow, ow, crushing a body part, ow." Stiles complained.

"There, stand." The Sheriff demanded and waved Rebecca over. She stopped reluctantly next to her brother, who she wanted to hurt physically in various ways at that moment.

"What in the hell do you two think you're doing?"

Stiles opened his mouth to lie like crazy, but Rebecca was too quick. She had always been better with their father than he was. "Trying to help." That seemed like a reasonable answer.

"What she said." Stiles agreed when the Sheriff looked at him pointedly, zeroing in.

"Uh huh. Okay, well how about you help me understand…" Now he was only talking to Stiles. Did he know he was the worse liar? That wasn't information he was supposed to have. Ever. "…exactly how you came across this."

"We were looking for Scott's inhaler." Stiles answered calmly.

Rebecca released a breath. This wasn't going so bad.

"Which he dropped when?"

That made her wince.

"The other night."

FUCK.

The Sheriff stared back at him, dumbfounded. "The other night when you were out here looking for the first half of the body?"

Stiles answered 'yes' and Rebecca answered 'no' at the same time. Her fiery gaze fixated on him. "I wasn't doing anything the other night." She reminded her father.

"Painfully aware, sweetheart. Now, this is the night that you told me you were alone and happened to stumble onto your sister and Scott was at home?"

"Yes. I mean-" Stiles quickly looked to Rebecca for reinforcements. But she was done with him. "Yeah, I mean… oh, crap crappy crayola." He mumbled to the ground.

"You're impossible." Rebecca informed him.

"So you lied to me."

"That depends on how you define lying."

"Well, I define it as not telling the truth. How do you define it?"

"Reclining your body in a horizontal position?"

Now she was done DONE. "Okay, I have to be away from you." Rebecca stood up on her tip toes to kiss her father's cheek and walked back to the jeep.

Scott quietly waited for an explanation of what just happened.

"If you two didn't have a Nancy Drew to keep you in line, you'd be rotting in a Mexican jail somewhere." Rebecca told him and climbed into the backseat to wait for Stiles, the worst liar in the world.

**-X-X-**

"Ugh!" Rebecca grunted, typing into the ipad. "There's nothing about wolfsbane being used for burial anywhere. I've gone through like four search engines. The internet sucks today." She complained from the backseat.

"Keep looking." Stiles told her. "Maybe it's like a ritual or something and they bury you as a wolf. Or maybe it's like a special skill you have to learn."

"Turning back and forth?"

Stiles nodded. Scott winced and leaned his head against the window. "I'll put it on my to do list. Right under finding out how the hell I'm going to play this game tonight and not kill everyone."

Rebecca glanced up from the screen and noticed the pained look on Scott's face. He didn't look good. "Are you feeling okay?"

"Fine." Scott snapped, wiping sweat from his forehead.

"It might be different for girl werewolves." Stiles countered. "No offense."

"I'm not a wolf, Stiles."

"Yeah, but you're a... never mind."

"Stop saying werewolves! Stop enjoying this so much!?" Scott shouted at them and leaned over.

"Are you okay?"

"No!" Scott shouted again. "I'm so far from being okay!"

Rebecca leaned between the seats and pulled him back against the headrest to get a better look at him. She felt his forehead and his eyes squeezed shut. "He's burning up. Stiles, pull over."

"No, Scott, you're going to have to accept this eventually, and stop babying him. It's not helping the situation. He needs to deal sooner or later."

"I can't." Scott moaned.

"Well, you're gonna have to."

"I can't breath." Scott's arms raised and pushed against the jeep's ceiling.

Rebecca leaned back in her seat, concerned about what would come next. "Pull over, Stiles."

"Whoa, whoa... what's happening? Scott?" Stiles reacted and stared at him.

Rebecca held onto the seats when the jeep swerved across the narrow road. Scott quickly reached over to look inside Stiles' bookbag. "You kept it?" He asked frantically when he found the wolfsbane.

Stiles tried not to sound too panic stricken. "What was I supposed to do with it?"

"Don't we need it?" Rebecca asked, confused.

"For what?!" Scott exclaimed.

"I don't know something?!"

"Stop the car!" Scott demanded. His eyes turned bright yellow.

Stiles stomped on the brakes, grabbed the bag, and threw it into the woods. Rebecca barely had a chance to react when Scott bolted from the car and ran in the opposite direction.

"Scott, where are you going?!" She unbuckled her seat belt and struggled to get around the seat to go after him.

By the time Stiles came back, Scott had disappeared. "Okay, we're good. You… where is he?"

"He ran off that way." Rebecca pointed. She only made it halfway out of the car.

**-X-X-**

"Do you see him?" Stiles asked, one hand on the wheel and the other holding the cell phone to his ear.

Rebecca shook her head, trying to keep her eyes peeled on both sides of the road. They'd spent the past hour looked for Scott with no luck. Stiles hit the wheel with his palm. Dispatch still had him on hold. "Stiles, just hang up."

"Hello? Hello?" Stiles answered.

The afternoon dispatcher, Gretchen, finally clicked back over to him. Rebecca had only met her a few times when she'd gone to see her father at work, but it was obvious that the woman didn't possess an affinity for her brother. "Stiles, you know you can't call the dispatch line when I'm on duty. That was an important call I was just on."

"I just need to know if you've gotten any odd calls."

"Other than this one?" Stiles sighed heavily, holding the phone away for a moment to collect himself. "Elaborate on odd."

"Um, like an odd person or dog-like individual roaming the streets. Possibly on all fours. Something like that… maybe?"

"I'm hanging up on you now."

"Okay, what if we were being chased by this dog-like individual, Gretchen? What if our lives were in jeopardy in a very major, very real way? Would you hang up on us then?"

"Are you being chased, Stiles?"

"Not exactly, but-"

"Then I'm hanging up now. Goodbye."

Click.

"No, wait, wait wait!" Stiles threw the phone onto the dashboard. "Unbelievable. No consideration. None."

Then Rebecca had a plausible thought. "He's probably just making out with Allison at her house."

Stiles looked away from the road, surprised by the idea, but then thought about it as well.

"If that's the truth I'm going to kill him."

**-X-X-**

Rebecca hung off the edge of Allison's bed backwards to try and keep herself entertained. Not that Allison running back and forth from her closet like a crazy person while she tried on outfit after outfit wasn't entertaining. She sighed, realizing the girly stuff like wanting to look amazing for a guy, not being able to wait to see him, having that feeling in the pit of your stomach when he looked at you a certain way, did mean a lot to her at one time.

But now the only guy interested in her within a fifty mile radius, at least as far as she knew, was Matt Daehler, who she had little to no interest in. The dude creeped her out. There was just something about him that she couldn't put her finger on. An unwanted element.

A part of her internally screamed at herself _'you don't need a guy. the last cute one who smiled at you basically ruined your fucking life and now you don't trust any of them, idiot. remember that?'_ The other part was hopeful there was a guy out there who wasn't a cheating asshole.

Wishful thinking.

"This one's too bright." Allison was holding up a shirt against her chest, head cocked to one side. "And it makes me look fat, which is the best thing _ever_. It's official. I hate everything that I own."

She watched Allison throw the shirt back into the pile on the bed and rolled over to go through a few. She held up a dark blue one.

"Try."

Allison let out a low grunt and went back to the evil mirror to check. She seemed to like it more than the others and pulled it over her head. "Can I say something without sounding totally weird?"

"I'm a rockstar genius with excellent leadership qualities, perfect fashion sense, and great hair."

"Yes."

"Mm-hmm. People have said that before. Do you have anymore gum?"

Allison tossed her the pack of spearmint from the dresser and pulled on a pair of skinny jeans and brown boots. She frowned at the lipgloss on her face and wiped it off. "Darker, I think." Allison mumbled, rummaging through her makeup drawer.

"You're making me dizzy." Rebecca told her and pulled a chair over. "Sit and do not do anything."

Allison took a deep breath and dropped into the seat. "I don't know why I'm so nervous."

"Because you're seeing your first line boyfriend play lacrosse and hanging out after. Criminally understandable. Should have a little more confidence though." Rebecca found a darker shade and applied it to her lips.

"I don't even know if he's my boyfriend." Allison admitted, embarrassed.

Rebecca held out a tissue for her to blot with. "Trust me. He's your boyfriend and cray-cray about you. All he does it talk about how great you are."

"No he doesn't." Allison blushed. Rebecca turned her around to face the mirror. "Done, done, and done."

Rebecca checked over her own makeup over Allison's shoulder before Chris poked his head in to warn them they were going to be late.

"Down in a sec, Dad." Allison told him.

Rebecca grabbed her bag and made sure she hadn't left anything behind. To be honest, being in Allison's house with her Dad was creepy and she didn't want a reason to come back any time soon. Small doses was better.

Allison was staring at her intently, looking like she wanted to say something. Rebecca waited awkwardly for a moment, pretending to check a text message. "Thanks for, um, doing this by the way. Helping me through my embarrassing meltdown. It's been kind of hard to make friends other than Lydia..."

Rebecca smiled back at her, nodding in agreement. She felt herself blush and tried to hide it as they headed downstairs. Making friends hadn't been easy for her either.

**-X-X-**

The lacrosse game was eventful and they won, but it didn't end well. Lydia randomly whipped out a 'We Luv U Jackson' sign and Scott was _extra_ pleased. Allison felt obligated to join in and Rebecca stayed seated to watch in amazement. Not a great start for a couple. Cheering for a total jackass instead of your I-don't-know-if-he's-my-boyfriend.

Jackass also convinced Danny and the other teammates not to pass the ball to Scott in an attempt to further humiliate him. But Scott wolfed out a bit, scared the other players, and ended up making it work. The werewolf hearing surprised Rebecca more than anything. Allison whispered 'you can do it Scott' from the bleachers and he actually heard her.

Everyone rushed the field when they won the game and Scott disappeared back towards the school. Rebecca watched as Allison followed him. She hopped off of the bleachers when her Dad got a phone call that sounded important.

Rebecca hugged Stiles from behind. He gasped in response and pretended to hit her over the head with his lacrosse stick. "Good game."

Stiles pointed to the Sheriff. "What's that about?"

"Super cop business. He did the thing where he got quiet and serious and told me to go away with his eyes."

They watched their Dad and noticed he looked upset and was saying 'what', 'say again', and started to pace. Stiles stood up anxiously and stayed there until he closed the phone.

"Everything okay, Dad?" Stiles asked doing his best impression at sounding uninterested.

Like Scott had said in the car earlier, everything was so far from being okay, and Rebecca realized he was right.

The report from the medical examiner came back on the body they found. The killer was an animal and not a human, so Derek had been released. The body had also been identified as Laura Hale. Meaning in the eyes of the law, all Derek was doing was burying a family member.

Stiles acted like he forgot something important in the locker room and started to quickly gather his things. "I'm gonna go tell Scott what's going on before… I don't even know what. This is crazy. He was right we should have never gone out there." He turned back to her before running off. "Stay with Dad. We don't know what Derek's going to do."

Tightening her coat around her body, Rebecca somehow knew that Derek was the least of their problems. He was most likely just pissed about the whole thing. But he was always pissed, so there probably wasn't that big of a difference.

The Sheriff wrapped his arm around Rebecca's shoulder, and she shivered again. "Want my jacket?" He offered, already moving to take it off.

"Nope, I'm good. To the cruiser?"


	10. Stalkers and Bloody Buses

Rebecca cringed at the sound of Matt's voice when she heard it from across the library. Guess her idea to come to school early to catch up on a few things had backfired. Pretending not to hear him left the few options that she had when his footsteps grew closer, and the chair pulled out in front of her.

He smiled eagerly and asked if she had any plans on Friday. Unfortunately, she didn't.

"I actually do." Rebecca lied. Every time she said no to him he just came back. "Sorry."

Matt shook his head, smile still plastered on his face that she was starting to be annoyed by. "No worries. Sort of feels like you've been avoiding me though. Might be all in my head, but-"

"To be honest, Matt… I know I should have told you before, but I'm not really dating right now."

His face dropped.

"By choice." Rebecca assured him. At least that was sort of the truth. "It has nothing to do with you."

"It's not you it's me." Matt said, grinning down at the table slightly.

"As cliche as that sounds, yeah."

Matt nodded. Rebecca guessed that meant he understood and would be able to move onto someone or something else easily. She glanced up at the clock awkwardly, desperate to find a plausible excuse to leave in a hurry. But his penetrating gaze was on her again in half a second. His eyes were odd. Like he was staring right through her.

"When you're ready then." Obviously he took what she said the wrong way. She opened her mouth to correct him, but he was determined to keep going. "I just… I've been thinking about you a lot and I like you, Rebecca. You're smart and funny and nice. Not to mention gorgeous. Amazing's a better word. You're amazing. Lydia's party was bad. I screwed up. Did something wrong."

"Matt, that's not-"

"No, it's okay." He grabbed her hand. "But it'll be better next time. Promise. We can do whatever you want. Whatever you want to do."

It took all of her willpower not to tell him that she would never be ready. That she wasn't interested. That she would never be interested because he creeped her out and he was holding her hand and all she wanted him to do was stop. But it was too early in the morning to even articulate what to say to him and not sound cruel. It was just a stupid crush. He would get over it.

She smiled at him and gently removed his clammy hand from her own to start packing up her stuff. "Just remembered I have to turn something in before class to Mr. Harris. Talk later?"

Or avoid him for the rest of her life. Whichever worked better.

She walked into the hallway without waiting for a response and exited the double doors that lead outside. Then she wished she had stayed in the library with Matt.

Police officers were taking pictures of one of the school buses that looked like someone or something had been killed in. There was blood everywhere, the seats were ripped to shreds, and the back door was bent open. There were also claw marks. Three to be exact. There's no way Scott had done this.

She turned away briefly and put her hand over her nose. Usually she wasn't squeamish at the sight of blood, that was Stiles' department, but there was so much of it and the smell was awful.

Scott and Stiles came out a few seconds later in mid-conversation and stared ahead in shock.

"Holy Batman carnage." Rebecca agreed, finally able to turn back to the scene.

"I think it did." She heard Stiles say. Scott looked at him, concerned.

"You had something to do with this?" Rebecca whispered to Scott.

He doubled back into the school frantically and ran his hands through his hair. Stiles and Rebecca followed close behind.

"I'm sure she's fine, Scott. You don't know if it was her." Stiles reminded him.

"Who?" Rebecca asked, hating that she was always the last one to know werewolf business. That would have to change because half of the time she felt like her brain was going to spontaneously combust with all the confusion.

"I had a nightmare that I was with Allison in a bus last night and that I killed her. Now there's a bus and it's all bloody and I can't find Allison. We need to find her now."

She watched Scott's anger rise and knew that wasn't good. If they didn't find her soon he was going to shift in the middle of the school hallway. Rebecca looked down at her cell phone. "She still hasn't texted me back from this morning."

Scott stopped. "How long?"

"Two hours. But her phone might be off or dead."

"She hasn't texted me back either." Scott confirmed and walked faster.

"The bus could have just been a coincidence, all right? Something else could have done it." Stiles said, trying to calm him down.

"Just help me find her guys, okay?"

"Where do you meet up in the mornings, Becs?" Stiles asked.

"It depends. At her locker or the library. But I was just there and didn't see her." Rebecca answered, worried now. She didn't want to think about what it would do to Scott if he'd hurt Allison. Even if it was unintentional.

"Do you see her?" Scott asked, looking around. He brushed past other students and searched all of the different faces.

"No." Stiles said.

Scott turned a corner suddenly and stopped against one of the lockers. He yelled out and groaned and his fist angrily connected with the blue metal door. Rebecca put her hand on his shoulder.

"Scott, calm down. Take a deep breath. Shh… come on. Don't do this here." Not that it mattered. There was already a dent in the door the size of Montana.

Scott breathed heavily and a few low growls released from his chest. He surveyed the damage he had done and started to back away.

"Look at it this way," Rebecca swung the mangled door back and forth. "it's Jackson's locker. You're doing the world a favor."

Then a voice rang out from behind them. "Becca! I've been looking all over for you."

Allison walked towards them juggling a few books in her arms.

"So was he." Rebecca pointed to a very relieved Scott and gave him a smile to let him know that everything worked out.

"You're okay." Scott told her.

Allison let out an awkward laugh. "Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"

"No reason, I… just happy to see you." Scott smiled.

Of course they still had to go to classes despite the murder scene on school property. Typical.

**-X-X-**

"Didn't you go to the thing at Lydia's last weekend with that weird Matt guy?" Jackson asked without looking up from his paper. Rebecca couldn't believe he was actually being studious and paying attention in class. She didn't expect that from him of all people. It was bizarre.

"Yeah. Why?" Rebecca answered, picking at her chipped nail. Jackson grimaced. "Sorry you don't approve. But we didn't really click."

Jackson rolled his eyes. "Well, I could have told you that. Total freak. He's always taking pictures of random stuff for no reason."

"That's because he's on the school paper."

Jackson looked over at her, confused. She didn't get why he cared so much about her love life or why he was acting like a charitable dating service.

"You know the pictures of the students at sporting events?" Rebecca said slowly, over emphasizing every word. "Someone has to take those. With a camera. They don't just magically appear out of thin air."

"Whatever." Jackson said dismissively. "He's a loser and you can do better."

"And your definition of a loser would be…?"

Jackson lifted his head, pretending to think about it for more than half a second. Mr. Harris called out Stiles in the middle of class and separated him from Scott. They were still trying to figure out the whole bus thing. Scott complained under his breath and sat at the desk in front of them.

"Let's see…" Jackson said and glared at the back of Scott's head. Scott turned slightly, but kept looking ahead. "Matt, Scott, Stiles… basically everyone you hang out with. That's how I'd define it."

Rebecca shook her head, looking back down at her paper. She shouldn't have smiled, but she did anyway. Jackson really didn't give a shit what came out of his own mouth. As long as he thought it was true.

"I'll ask around. See who wants to take you out and isn't a complete zero. Trevor's mentioned you like fifty thousand times to me. He still thinks your name's Kelly, but that's an easy fix."

"As temping as that sounds, I'll pass. Finding a date isn't the problem."

Jackson leaned in closer. "Then what is?"

"Hey, I think they found something!" The girl sitting next to Scott jumped out of her seat and everyone followed her to the window. EMT's rolled a stretcher with an older man strapped to it towards an ambulance.

"That's not a rabbit." Scott pointed out to Stiles, concerned. They were standing behind her. Rebecca moved closer to the glass to get a better look to see if she recognized him. "Do you know who that is?" She asked.

Scott and Stiles shook their heads no. Suddenly, the guy shot up in the stretcher and screamed out in pain. Rebecca gasped, along with everyone else, and Stiles pulled her away from the window.

"Don't look at that." He lead her a few feet away with Scott. "This is good. He got up, he's not dead. That's a good thing, right? Dead guys can't do that."

"Stiles. I did that."

**-X-X-**

Rebecca decided to walk to the police station after school to pump her Dad for more information about the attack on the bus. The victim was Garrison Meyers, a bus driver Scott knew when he lived with his Dad. Might as well do something useful. It was either this or hang out with Stiles, who she desperately needed a break from after today.

She climbed the cement steps and pushed the double doors open. Ever since she was little, the building had smelled like dusty old books and 409. Her nose twitched at the strong scent and she hoped her Dad was feeling generous. Though that was unlikely.

Rebecca grinned at Gretchen behind the front desk and leaned her chin on both arms. "Hey, Gretch. Is he in?"

"In his office." The woman answered, not exactly happy to see her. "He's on his way out though."

One of the police dogs limped out of the back hallway with a wrapped leg. Rebecca made a beeline for the animal and dropped to her knees to pet him. Gretchen glanced back at her, surprised. "Aww… what happened? What happened to you? Look at your face. Such a cutie. You're such a handsome boy. Yes you are. Yes you are." Rebecca said in a small child's voice.

The dog took to her right away, animals always did, and started to move around as much as it could with the injured leg. Rebecca rolled around with him on the ground and barked a few times, getting him more riled up. She'd always wanted a dog or at least a pet.

"To what do we owe this pleasure?" Her father stared down at her, almost speechless, sunglasses over his eyes. The dog was still licking her face. He offered his hand and pulled her off of the floor. "You're scaring Gretchen again." The Sheriff murmured. Gretchen looked like she wanted to flee.

He looked behind her. "Stiles with you?"

"Nope." Rebecca shook her head. "I walked over from school. We need quality time."

"How much?"

"Bonding can't be measured in time."

"I meant how much money do you need."

"I'm appalled and hurt that you would imply-"

"Can you we do it in the car then?" He asked and attached a leash to the dog. "I've gotta take him to the animal clinic. Stitches come out today."

**-X-X-**

Scott looked like he was going to vomit when he saw the Sheriff through the glass door at the clinic. Then Rebecca came into view and he relaxed a little, but was still on edge. He felt like he was trying to avoid being caught when he wasn't sure if he had done anything in the first place.

"Staying out of trouble, Scott?" The Sheriff questioned, removing his sunglasses.

"Yeah." Scott answered simply. Rebecca walked over to him and whispered, "He brought the Garrison file. I couldn't get anything out of him in the car. Seems like he's still trying to figure out what happened."

Deaton lifted the dog onto the table and the Sheriff held up a manilla folder. "While I'm here, do you mind taking a look at those pictures I was telling you about? Sacramento still can't determine an animal."

"I'm not exactly an expert." Deaton told him honestly and removed the photos. "This is the guy who was attacked on the bus?"

"Yeah." They looked down at the large bite mark in the photo. "And we found wolf hairs on Laura Hale's body."

"I think I read somewhere the wolves haven't been in California for like sixty years." Scott spoke up and got closer to the men.

"True enough, but they're highly migratory. Might have wandered in from another state driven by impulse or a strong enough memory."

"Wolves have memory?" Scott asked.

"Longer-term memories. If associated with a primal drive." Deaton pointed to the bloody marks on Garrison's face. "Those are claw marks. A wolf would have gone for the throat or the spinal cord with it's teeth."

Rebecca grimaced. Scott got paler by the second.

"So, a mountain lion's the strongest possibility?" The Sheriff asked, frustrated.

"I don't know." Deacon admitted. "A wolf could chase down it's prey, hobbling it by tearing at the ankles. And then the throat."

Rebecca looked over at Scott, who was deep in thought. She guessed that's exactly what he had done to Allison in the nightmare.


	11. Silver Bullet

Rebecca took a few days to tune out the werewolf dramatics, because quite frankly, she needed a breather after her father's visit to the animal hospital. Thankfully the long jogs, a full day of shopping with Lydia and a weekend sleepover, lunch and a movie with Allison, a local bookstore she stumbled onto, and finally getting around to updating her IPod kept her busy.

She turned her disinterested gaze away from the classroom window, bored out of her mind. It was last period and all she wanted to do was be somewhere else. Anywhere else. After checking her phone for the tenth time, she raised her hand.

"Yes, Ms. Stilinski?" Ms. Hudson asked from her desk.

"Bathroom pass?"

The black haired, blue eyed woman had the same annoyed look on her face that appeared when any of the students asked for a pass ten minutes before the bell.

Rebecca took her time and walked slowly to the bathrooms at the end of the hall, hoping to prolong the escape. She ran her hand against the lockers and stopped when she saw what looked like a student hunched over in a corner.

"Hey… are you okay?" She asked walking over to them. Their back was turned. When they slowly turned around to face her, she realized it was Derek. So much for tuning out the drama. It had found her again.

His face was pale and he looked like he could keel over any second. He almost fell against her when she reached for him and grabbed the edge of a locker for support. "Derek what happened to you?" Rebecca asked frantically, trying to steady him.

"Where's-" Derek breathed, having difficulty getting his words out. "-Scott?"

It was Tuesday. Last period. That meant Scott and Stiles were on the other side of the school in class together. "Can you walk?"

Derek shook his head, more color draining from his complexion by the minute. Rebecca lifted his arm and ducked underneath it to help him walk . He looked over at her with confusion and jerked away. She guessed he thought Scott was the only one who could help him. Major trust issues.

"You're seriously going to be difficult right now and not let me help you?" Rebecca scoffed. Derek looked like he was seriously considering that before giving in, and allowing her to lead him out of the school towards the parking lot.

By the time they got down the cement steps, which took forever because of Derek's state and the fact that he was heavier than Rebecca ever imagined, the students were already heading to their cars. Some of them noticed the pair and looked on with interest. Others ignored them completely.

Rebecca yelled out for Stiles, but he was too far away to hear her. Allison was supposed to take her home that day, so he wasn't waiting for her. She gripped onto Derek tighter, quickly staggered with him across the lot, and stepped in front of the moving jeep.

Stiles slammed on the breaks and lurched in his seat. "Oh my God!" He screeched. "This guy's freakin' everywhere."

Derek stumbled back and dropped to ground, bringing Rebecca down with him. Stiles craned his neck out of the window and jumped out when he noticed his sister entangled in the leather jacket. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hey! What the hell? Not again!" He shouted like a maniac.

Rebecca got out from under Derek's arm and sighed deeply at Stiles' assumption that she was being fake kidnapped again. He was never going to get over that. _Ever_. She heard a pained moan escape from Derek and turned her attention back to him. "Derek?" She shook him and he slowly sat up, head lolling to one side.

"Thanks..." He muttered. She nodded and glanced up at Stiles who looked like he was going to lose it any second.

"I said get off of her, man!" demanded Stiles when he reached them.

"He's not kidnapping me, Stiles, he's hurt! I found him in the hallway like this." Rebecca said over her shoulder. She was still hovered near Derek's body to look for the source of whatever wound he had. She removed his jacket and found the hole in his arm.

"What the hell?" Scott dropped to his knees next to them. "What are you doing here?"

"I was shot." Derek tells him.

Rebecca sighed. "Thanks for telling _me_, you jerk."

"He's not looking so good, dude." Stiles said, standing over the group.

"Why aren't you healing?" Scott asked worriedly.

"I… can't. It was a different kind of bullet."

Now Stiles was excited and actually interested in what was happening. "What a silver bullet?!"

"No, you idiot." Derek rolled his eyes and directed the rest to Rebecca. "How do you live with him?"

"It can be difficult." She admitted.

"Wait, that's what she meant when she said you have forty-eight hours." Scott realized, deep in thought.

"She?" Rebecca asked.

"The one who shot him last night."

Derek's back arched in pain suddenly and his eyes flashed blue. The fangs were already visible. Scott looked around nervously at the waiting drivers behind the jeep. The horns were honking like crazy now. "What are doing? Stop that!"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you I can't." Derek growled at Scott.

"Okay, Derek you need to get up." Rebecca urged. "Help me get him in the car, Scott. Someone's going to see him." Scott got on the other side of Derek and they pulled him towards the jeep. Stiles didn't look happy at it. "Wait, why does it have to be with me? I'm not taking this psycho anywhere!"

Rebecca leaned Derek against the car and jumped into the backseat. She helped Scott pull him in. "He needs a doctor, Stiles."

"And I care why?" Stiles asked annoyed, slamming the door after getting in.

"Because he could die?" Rebecca retorted back at him. She heard Derek tell Scott that he needed to find out what kind of bullet was used and mentioned the shooter was an Argent. Great, Allison's aunt from out of town was a nut job too. Scott agreed that he would try. "Get him out of here."

Stiles made a face, shooting a glare at Derek. "I hate both of you for this so much."

**-X-X-**

"Has Scott texted you yet?" Rebecca asked from the back seat. They had been driving around for over half an hour and still hadn't heard from him. Derek weakly removed his jacket. Stiles literally hadn't stopped glaring at him since they left school.

Stiles checked his cell phone and sighed. "Come on." He muttered to himself. "He needs more time."

Scott probably wasn't even looking. He and Allison were cute and everything, but they were starting to annoy her. Every time there was something important going on he was preoccupied.

"Try not to bleed on my seats." Stiles complained to Derek. "We're almost there."

"The hospital's the other way." Rebecca told him.

"Unless you have an explanation that makes sense and doesn't scream call the police immediately that's definitely not where we're going. We're going to his house."

A panicked look crossed Derek's face. "You can't take me there."

"I can't take you to your own house?" Stiles asked in disbelief.

"Not when I can't protect myself."

Stiles pulled over to the side of the road. He was about to blow a fuse and just wanted Derek out of his car. He turned to Derek and the questions began. "What happens if Scott doesn't find your magic bullet, hmm? Are you dying?"

"Not yet." Derek answered. "I have a last resort."

"What do you mean? What last resort?!"

Derek lifted his sleeve and Rebecca held her breath realizing that Stiles hadn't seen the bullet hole yet. He looked away, grossed out at the sight of it and asked if it was contagious or not. Rebecca leaned towards him and looked down at the skin. "It's getting worse." She told him. Derek nodded in agreement.

"Look, you should probably just get out." Stiles said seriously.

"He can't even walk. How far do you think he'll get? Start the car."

"Now." Derek seethed, getting more annoyed with him.

But Stiles wasn't budging. Rebecca knew that look. He was going to try and talk him to death. "I don't think you should be barking orders with the way you look. In fact, I think if I wanted to, I could probably drag your little werewolf ass out into the middle of the road and leave you for dead, which is what I _really_ want to do right now, seeing as though you've ruined my best friend's life and less than a week ago you kidnapped my sister." Stiles ranted.

"Fake kidnapped." Rebecca reminded him… again. She and Derek seemed to the only ones who understood what the term meant.

"Same difference!"

"Start the car or I will rip your throat out with my teeth and enjoy it." Derek promised darkly.

Stiles stared at him for a moment and caved, turning the key in the ignition.

Derek shifted uncomfortably in his seat and motioned to Rebecca. "For the record, I apologized for that." He informed Stiles.

"It's true." Rebecca confirmed indifferently. Maybe now Stiles would shut up about it forever.

"Well, that magically makes everything fine then. _Poof_! It's all good." Stiles threw up his hands dramatically, letting go of the wheel to make his point.

Rebecca was almost to the last level of the game on her cell phone when the sky started to get dark. They were still parked on the side of the road and Derek was as white as a sheet. She stopped asking if he was okay ten minutes ago when he scolded her to the point of exhaustion.

Stiles was complaining to Scott on the phone about where they were supposed to take Derek. "And by the way," Stiles glanced over at the werewolf with a disgruntled expression, "he's starting to smell… like death."

Rebecca shivered, wrapping both arms around herself. She had left her jacket in the hall closet again. Derek let out a soft moan of pain and held his leather jacket over his shoulder for her to take. She gratefully pulled it on. "Thanks."

He grumbled in response and looked over at her brother like he wanted to kill him.

Stiles sighed and handed the phone out to Derek. "You're not going to believe where he's telling me to take you."

**-X-X-**

Stiles and Rebecca crashed into the exam room at the animal hospital with Derek. He stripped his shirt and Rebecca grimaced at the cut on his arm. It had gotten worse and the dark purple veins were popping out.

Stiles leaned against the metal table nervously. "You know that really doesn't look like anything some echinacea and a good night's sleep couldn't take care of."

"When the infection reaches my heart it'll kill me." Derek warned them.

Rebecca stood next to him. "How long does that take?" She asked.

"An hour." Derek shrugged, taking deep breaths through the pain. "Maybe less."

"Positivity just isn't in your vocabulary is it?"

Rebecca glared across the table at her brother. "Good to know you're taking a life or death situation so seriously. He could die if Scott doesn't get here with the bullet. Text him again."

"I've texted him enough. He's going as fast as he can."

"It's not fast enough!" Rebecca shouted at him. Derek was rummaging through drawers and stopped when he found something large and sharp on the end. If that was what it looked like they were in trouble. Derek held up the object and her worst fears were confirmed. It was some kind of a saw. "You're gonna cut off my arm."

Rebecca's hands flew to the top of her head in panic. "That's the last resort? Are you freakin' kidding me?! No one's cutting off anybody's anything! Dumbest idea ever."

Derek just stared back at the teenagers without a hint of doubt. He pushed the saw over to Stiles. He was serious. Stiles looked down at the object and over at Rebecca horrified. There was no way he could do this.

"He can't just cut off your arm, Derek." Rebecca tried to say in her calmest voice. Maybe that would diffuse the situation because she wanted to vomit just thinking about it. She screeched when Stiles turned the saw on and off again. "Don't do that!"

"What if you bleed to death?" Stiles asked. Derek was wrapping blue tape around his upper arm.

"Put the tape down." Rebecca pleaded. Again, calmly.

"It'll heal if it works."

"_If_ it works! Not exactly a small risk! No, we're sticking to the original plan. Waiting for Scott to come with the bullet. He has to be on his way."

Stiles' eyes narrowed at Derek. "I don't know if I can do this. Cutting through the flesh, the sawing of the bone, and the blood. Especially the blood."

"You faint at the sight of blood?" Derek asked, incredulous.

"No, but I might at the sight of a chopped off limb!"

"I scraped my knee in a bike accident when I was eleven." Rebecca spoke up. "He cried for five minutes, passed out on the driveway in front of our grandparents, and when he came to he sobbed for another hour. So, I have to say, yes, you do faint at the sight of blood, Stiles."

"That was…" Stiles opened his mouth, waiting for a moment to think of a rebuttal. "an intense situation and I was twelve years old and under a huge mountain of stress!"

Rebecca stared him down in disbelief. It was just like him to deny the truth when it was staring him in the face. "Explain last Christmas then."

Stiles sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Not really the time to bring up the most embarrassing moments of my young life, Rebecca. But I- Derek, I can't do this! I can't."

"Either you cut off my arm or I'm gonna cut off your head." Derek told him.

Rebecca pointed at him accusingly. "Be nice."

"I said his head not yours."

"Still. Family member." She argued.

Stiles shook his head. "Okay, you know, I'm so not buying your threats anymo…" Derek grabbed Stiles by the shirt collar forcefully. "Okay, totally, yes, okay, I'll do it." Stiles mumbled in response. Then he lurched forward and vomited black liquid onto the floor.

"Holy God what the hell is that?" Stiles asked himself out loud.

"My body's… trying to heal itself." Derek breathed. "Now. You've got to do it now."

After more protesting from Stiles, Rebecca turned her head knowing this was going to happen whether he wanted it to or not. She put her hands over her ears when the scraping sound started and Stiles yelled out 'here we go'.

"Stiles?! Becs?!" A voice rang out from the front of the building. Rebecca's eyes popped open and her head turned towards Scott's voice. "Scott, get your ass in here NOW!"

"Scott?" Stiles said and turned off the saw.

Scott appeared in the doorway and Rebecca immediately shoved him backwards. "Where the hell have you been?! Stiles was about to saw Derek's arm clean off."

"What the hell?!" Scott moved towards the scene in shock.

"You just prevented a lifetime of nightmares." Stiles sighed.


	12. Ch-Ch-Changes

"Boring, boring, more boring, even more boring, shoot myself in the face and bury me in a shallow grave never to be seen or heard from again boring…" Rebecca moaned as she flipped through her history book. Usually homework wasn't this unbearable, but the subject of the assignment was mind numbing.

She shut the book closed with a loud smack and turned onto her back to stare at the ceiling. The house was too quiet and though she hated to admit it, next to loud thunder storms and any kind of spider, being alone in a house at night wasn't exactly on her list of favorite things.

Deciding there was nothing on TV on a Thursday, she did the next logical thing and dialed Stiles' cell. Bugging him always worked like a charm. It was both entertaining and emotionally satisfying. He and their Dad were on some ride along that she was excluded from per usual.

They needed father-son time according to the Sheriff. To discuss what, she could only imagine. Hopefully not Stiles' ongoing obsession with Lydia. If that was the case then they would be gone much longer than anticipated.

"This is why you need to make an effort to meet new people. Who do interesting things on weeknights." The girl mumbled to herself before Stiles finally picked up. "Shoot anybody with Dad's gun yet?"

"Uh uh." Stiles murmured, sounding distracted. Then his tone changed to concerned. "Everything okay?"

"Fine." Rebecca sighed dramatically into the receiver. She raised her legs to get a better view of her toes and realized a pedicure was long overdue. "But tell him there's a killer in the house with an axe and I'm hiding in the closet and you guys need to come home asap."

"Not telling him that."

"Seriously, I'm b-o-r-e-d. Talk to me about something insignificant." Rebecca whined.

"Um, well… something attacked Jackson and Lydia at the video store and there are cops and ambulances everywhere."

"Not exactly insignificant, but okay." Rebecca said with an eye roll, sure her brother was just being his sarcastic self. Then she heard commotion and police sirens in the background. "Wait, Stiles, are you serious?"

"As serious as I get."

"Oh my God." Rebecca leaped from the bed and pulled on a pair of skinny jeans, phone still pressed to her ear. "What happened? Is Lydia okay?"

"What are you doing?" Stiles asked firmly and dragged a hand over his face, endlessly frustrated by his sister's impulsive nature. "Don't walk here, Becs. It's still out there."

Rebecca stilled at his words. It was still out there… _It_. Realizing that by the time she made it over there everyone would be gone, her body dropped back down to the bed. "So, Lydia's okay?" She breathed, hoping for the best.

"Still in one piece. She's fine. Completely fine, actually." Stiles responded and sounded relieved himself. "Jackson's being a total dick though. He's yelling at everyone about having to get checked out by the EMT's."

"What attacked them?" Rebecca asked, a part of her not wanting to know the answer.

"I don't know. Dad's still questioning them, but whatever it was jumped through the glass window and took off after. Maybe one of them got a look at it. Wait-" She heard a door open and Stiles get out of the car. "Whoa, is that a dead body?" He screeched.

Rebecca gulped, paying more attention now. "Someone died?" After a few seconds of heavy breathing and then silence, she got impatient. "Stiles, what's going on?"

"The clerk from the store. It killed him. He's dead."

"Do you want me to call Scott?"

Stiles' eyes scanned the crime scene carefully, knowing somehow that his friend was already there. He'd felt it when he first got out of the car. Sure enough, he spotted Scott and Derek perched on the roof of the video store.

"Already here." He informed her.

Rebecca sighed. Maybe they could find something that the police couldn't. "Have Dad drop you off before he goes back to the station?" She asked hopefully and peered out of the bedroom window into the darkness.

"Yeah, I'll be back soon. Don't go outside."

**-X-X-**

Rebecca fixed her hair in the hallway mirror as Stiles rushed past her through the front door to start the jeep. The Sheriff had been on edge and not to mention overprotective as hell since the video store last night and it was really starting to annoy her. "For the ten millionth time. I will be careful and inform everyone that I know if I see a large animal anywhere near the vicinity." Rebecca scoffed. "What are the odds that it'll even show up at school?"

She caught her father's whole face twitch when she said the last part. Hundreds of parents freaking out and blaming the police for not finding the creature sooner was his worst nightmare. "I didn't say it was going to show up, honey. Just be cautious and keep your eyes open and call your old man if anything happens. That's all I'm asking." He added, securing his gun into the belt holster.

Rebecca nodded, attempting to humor him and not roll her eyes again. She got that he was overly worried about her safety, but she honesty didn't see the point. Last night was a little scary, but it was the middle of the day. "Does anyone even know what it is yet?"

"Still looking into it. But you'll be the first to know when we figure it out."

The jeep horn blared from outside and Stiles stuck his head out of the window impatiently. "I already volunteered for the bodyguard position! Lateness isn't a virtue!" He shouted.

Rebecca's head snapped from the door to her father again. "Bodyguard?"

"Exaggeration." The Sheriff moaned and yelled out the door at him. "That's an exaggeration, Stiles! I told him to look out for you, which he should be doing any way."

"You be careful too." Rebecca told him before heading outside.

**-X-X-**

Rebecca got wrapped up in a conversation with Danny about his love life when she ended up sitting next to him in chemistry later that day. Now she knew why everyone liked him and cursed herself for not finding him sooner. Being Jackson's best friend was the only flaw she noticed.

"It wasn't really a date, we didn't have time to talk or anything, so he's taking me out on Saturday. Not that you can really talk at a club with the music and the people." Danny realized.

"There's an actual club in Beacon Hills?" Rebecca asked, shocked.

"The Jungle. But it's not exactly female friendly if you know what I mean. You should come sometime anyway though."

Then suddenly Stiles' voice came from behind them. "Danny, can I ask you a question?"

Danny looked annoyed. Yet another person who was irritated by her brother's persistence. "Right now?"

"Yeah."

Danny glanced at Mr. Harris, who he seemed to fear on some level. "No."

"Well, I'm going to anyway. Did Lydia show up in your home room today?"

"No." Danny answered.

"She probably took the day off." Rebecca whispered over her shoulder.

"Can I ask you another question?"

"The answer's still no."

"Does anyone know what happened to her and Jackson last night?"

Rebecca glanced over at Danny, interested to know herself.

"He wouldn't tell me."

"But he's your best friend." Stiles said, confused.

Danny went back to his paper, ignoring the comment. Stiles leaned in again. "One more question."

"What?" Danny asked, annoyed.

"Do you find me attractive?"

Danny stared straight ahead with a befuddled expression plastered on his face. Whether or not he had come up with an answer before Stiles fell to the ground, Rebecca had no idea. Danny leaned over to her. "Is there something wrong with him… like mentally?"

"Yes."

**-X-X-**

"Look, I found something and I don't know what to do, okay? So if you could turn your phone on right now that would be great or else I'll kill you. Do you understand me?" Rebecca giggled down at the page of the book she was flipping through at Stiles' phone rage towards Scott.

"I'm gonna kill you. And I'm too upset to come up with a witty description of how exactly I'm going to kill you, but I'm just gonna do it. Okay?! I'm gonna- UGH!" He said into the receiver and threw the phone on the bed. "Goodbye."

"Scare tactic could use some work."

"Shut it." Stiles snapped from under his arm.

"Thinking that maybe this has more to do with Lydia thinking you were… Jackson." She chuckled.

That made Stiles lift up his head and glare over at her from across the room. His expression was suddenly seriously. "What's your problem? Seriously."

"I wasn't aware that I had one." Rebecca shot back, confused by his reaction. She was only half kidding, but he was taking it more seriously than anticipated. It wasn't like Lydia was in her right mind.

"Well, you do! You know how I feel about Lydia. How I've felt about her all this time. I've never even been to her house and when I do go she thinks I'm him. It's not like I can help… worrying about her. I just do." Stiles said.

"Stiles, from what you told me she was drugged up on enough Valium to take down an elephant. She didn't know what she was saying."

"What's makes you an expert?" Stiles started again, deciding to hit below the belt. "You've had tons of sex and systematically went on to dump every one of the losers before they could ask you out or the other way around. Stop the presses. That makes you the go to for unrequited relationships."

Rebecca stared down at the book page in stunned silence. Her face was hot and she could feel the pulse in her index finger throbbing. They had never discussed what happened before she was sent to the school in Arizona or what took place there, but Stiles seemed to have his own idea about what did.

She had no idea how long she had been like that, staring down at the book, in her own little world, but when she looked up again Stiles was knelt in front of her on the carpet with wide eyes. He might of spoken to try and get her attention, but she never heard him.

"I'm-" Stiles stuttered, horrified at what had come out of his mouth. It wasn't intentional and maybe subconsciously he was angry with her for not respecting herself, letting them hurt her the way that she did, but he certainly didn't want to be the one to hurt her as well. He was supposed to be the one who cared. The one who protected her from the same things he scolded her about. But he hadn't and that crushed him.

He licked his chapped lips to speak again when he caught her move a little. Signs of life. "Forgive me." Was all he managed to get out. When his hand moved instinctively to comfort her, to apologize, to make some gesture to let her know that he had never felt more regretful about anything in his life, Rebecca jerked away from him like she had been stung. "Don't." She warned him gruffly. "Don't touch me."


	13. Mountain Lion

It was safe to say that Stiles took Rebecca's warning not to touch her seriously. Maybe too seriously. The teenager practically leapt from his place in front of her on the floor and scurried across the room to create distance. Rebecca did the same, escaping to her bedroom, and slamming the door behind her (dramatically) for effect.

She forgot how strong his feelings on her personal space were. When they were kids, Stiles would only comfort her when she was upset if verbal permission was given first. And once in a while a simple nod would suffice. One of the unspoken Stilinski household rules.

Most of the time she was fine. But today she wasn't. What Stiles said really got to her.

Now she was lying on her bed tracing shapes into the comforter, face turned away from the door. A million different thoughts were spinning out of control in her head and she hated every single one of them. Nothing made sense. Being this upset didn't make sense.

Going for a run sounded like a viable option, movement to clear her head, but the energy wasn't there. Instead darkness loomed over her like a fog and there was no escape. She held her breath for a few short seconds and closed her fists tightly enough to draw blood. That made it go away at times.

But the tears still came. She slammed her fist against the mattress in frustration. With Stiles. With her father. With _HIM_. With herself. Every time anyone brought up the past this happened. She would fall apart, break down, clam up, go dead silent to stay in her own head, and not want others near her.

Certainly not the two of them when they would look at her with sad, guilty eyes blaming themselves when it had nothing to do with them at all. It was her. She was the problem. Finally the realization had come and it was exhausting.

Rebecca wiped at a stray tear again when there was a light knock on the door. Great, she had an audience to the most vulnerable moment in her fifteen years on the planet. Her head sank deeper into the pillow at the sound of her father's voice. "Heading over to the parent teacher meeting." The Sheriff said, poking his head in.

He sighed after she didn't respond and stood over her small body frame on the bed. "Can you two work this out yourselves or should I involve myself?"

"Talk to Stiles." Rebecca mumbled against the fabric. She knew if she didn't answer him he would just keep asking, or worse, stay at home.

The bed dipped when he sat beside her. "I did. Twice. He wouldn't tell me what happened or what you fought about. All he said was I should check on you. He feels like crap."

"Good." She responded flatly and sniffed a little. At least the crying had stopped for the most part.

The Sheriff shifted uncomfortably at the sound and leaned down to her level. His fear confirmed, he wiped at one of the tears on her exposed cheekbone with his sleeve. "Do your old man a favor and don't cry, okay? Makes my nerves go haywire." His gaze moved to the door. "Want me to stick around? I can skip the meeting."

She shook her head in response. "No. Go. I'll be okay."

"Sure?"

"Yeah," she nodded and turned her head slowly to look up at him, "I just want to be alone for awhile."

He gave her an unsure nod, a sad smile, and a short peck on the forehead before he left the room. A few mumbled sounds came from Stiles' room before the front door closed downstairs.

She must have tired herself out and fallen asleep because when she opened her eyes, Stiles was standing over her and it was dark outside. A manilla folder dangled from his hand.

"Forgive me yet?" Stiles asked like a hopeful puppy seeking an owner. He knew she always fell for that and even threw in a lopsided grin to further manipulate the situation. He sat in the computer chair and dragged it over with his feet. "I checked in on you a few times, but you were asleep... and saying stuff."

"About what?" She asked, a little embarrassed. She had been known to talk in her sleep.

Stiles shrugged. She pushed her upper body up to a sitting position and wiped sleepily at her eyes.

"I didn't mean it, Becs." Stiles breathed anxiously. "What I said... that isn't what I think of you."

"Stiles-"

"No, let me say this. I know it's not who you are and I'm sorry for saying any of it. It was a nasty thing to say and in a way I blame myself. Being the older brother comes with responsibilities and I haven't done any of the things I'm supposed to do."

Rebecca clutched a pillow to her chest protectively. She still felt guarded talking like this with Stiles. It wasn't something they did often. Or ever. "You're not responsible for me."

"Yes I am." Stiles interjected. "Especially with all this werewolf stuff going on. Scott and I brought you into that and I... let's just say that Lydia's not the only one I worry about all the time."

"You should be pissed at me." She said softly. "Stiles, you picked up all of the slack when I left and I know it wasn't easy. Dad started drinking again because of me."

Stiles lowered his head. "He stopped."

She grabbed for his hand. He held onto it tightly. "There's nothing to forgive."

Stiles looked up at her with relief and let out a deep breath. She quickly changed the subject, motioning to the folder. "What's that?"

"Oh." Stiles held it up. "It, um, might be the arson report from the Hale fire."

"Which you retrieved how...?"

"I might have bought it online for a reasonable price."

She gave him a look and snatched it from him, looking through the pages. "So it was arson?"

"That's what it says." Stiles cleared his throat. "Awkward time to ask, but you know that pasta you made last week with all the cheeses and the red sauce that tasted like rainbows in my mouth?"

"Yeah." Rebecca answered even though she had to think for a moment to figure out what he was talking about. Her brother had a very long term memory when it came to food. He smiled back at her innocently. "Don't use the eyes on me."

"Are you saying they work?"

"Scott does them better."

Stiles made the same eyes again, this time putting in more effort. "Need... food... very... hungry... need... Rebecca's... pasta..." Rebecca's eyes narrowed. "Come on. Every time I cook the thing it tastes like cardboard and dirty socks! And since you're not mad at me anymore I thought it was appropriate to-"

She mocked being irritated, though she wasn't, and handed him the file back. "I'll be down in ten minutes. Start boiling the water."

He pumped both fists excitedly and disappeared downstairs. Her forehead creased as she pulled a purple Hello Kitty t-shirt over her head and heard a large clanking noise and a short gasp downstairs. "God, Stiles." She murmured to herself with a laugh.

The phone in the kitchen rang at the tail end of preparing the meal. Stiles was helping set the table and grabbed for the cordless. "Yello, Stilinski barn." After a few moments of silence Rebecca looked over her shoulder. Stiles was white as a sheet and was staring right at her.

"What?" She mouthed, placing the strainer in the empty sink, and walked over to him. Their Dad wasn't on duty that night, so whatever it was couldn't have been about him.

"Thank you." Stiles responded, trying to keep his voice from breaking. Rebecca knew by his face that her assumption had been wrong before he said, "It's Dad. Something happened at school."

**-X-X-**

'Hit by a car' was a term that could mean many different things. He could have been hit hard by a car door as someone was opening it, or bumped into a driver backing out of a space, or a number of other things. Those were rational explanations.

All that was going through Rebecca's mind was he was hit by a car speeding out of the parking lot head on and bleeding to death, dying on some operating table, and the hospital just didn't want to tell them over the phone.

Rebecca went straight for Melissa McCall, Scott's mother who had always been like a mother to her and Stiles in more ways than one. She spotted her right away at the reception desk standing over the keyboard. "Mel, where is he is he okay?" She asked frantically.

The woman looked up at both Rebecca and Stiles' terrified faces. Though Stiles looked like he was trying to be strong for both of them and she smirked when he slipped an arm around his sister's shoulder. She couldn't believe how much they had grown over the years. Stiles literally towered over his much smaller sibling.

"He's going to be fine, guys. I wish they'd have waited to let me call you like I asked, but I was busy with another patient."

Rebecca and Stiles exhaled at the same time. "Can we see him?" He asked.

Melissa nodded and lead them down the hall. She grabbed Rebecca's hand and squeezed it gently to reassure her. "The car bumped into him. I guess they didn't see him with all the commotion going on. His hip is bruised. Slight tissue damage. Very minor. He'll be good as new by the end of next week at the latest."

A smile crept onto Stiles' face when the sound of the Sheriff barking orders at one of the poor nurses sounded. "I don't need that. It's not necessary. I don't want that thing, that needle, anywhere near my body. Because there's no pain where you're pointing it. Do I what? What's the point of creating pain if there is none? Well, I understand that but-"

Melissa shooed the nurse away and made sure their father had everything he needed. He complained (again) that he didn't even need the ambulance and could have easily driven himself without a problem, but everyone was insisting. She nodded, pretending to listen carefully, and stole irritated glances with Stiles.

"Barely grazed me, Melissa. The idiot just pulled out slowly and I happened to be right there."

"Fair enough. I'll go and draw up some paperwork and we'll get you out of here."

The Sheriff nodded and thanked her under his breath, still humiliated by all of it. Rebecca was planted next to him on the hospital bed with her arm linked with his own. "We found the mountain lion."

Rebecca's eyes lit up. "In the parking lot?"

"Mm-hm. That's why the idiot wasn't paying attention when he backed out. Everyone was going nuts. Mr. Argent shot and killed it before I could get there." The Sheriff huffed. He seemed annoyed by the fact that he wasn't the one to do it.

"And you saw it? It _was_ a mountain lion?" Stiles questioned. Rebecca shot him a look. He shrugged his shoulders.

"Without a doubt." The Sheriff answered and poured himself a cup of water. A few minutes later the same nurse came back to give him discharge papers and a prescription for pain medication, which he immediately refused, and proceeded to lecture her about a patient's right to refuse meds if they so desired.

Rebecca made sure to swipe the slip of paper from the front desk before they left.

He would thank her later.


	14. When In Doubt Drink

Teenage boys were bizarre, territorial, alien beings from another planet with no feelings to speak of. That was the only conclusion Rebecca could come to as she followed Scott and Stiles to the north end of the parking lot. Getting a license and her own form of transportation next year was her new goal.

At the beginning of the day, Stiles was so pissed at his friend he could barely see straight. After making sure their father was comfortable and had taken the prescribed pain medication, which Rebecca basically had to shove down his throat, she was forced to listen to Stiles' incessant rant. It took him the entire car ride to Beacon Hills High to accurately voice his opinion.

Scott's obsession with Allison and his total disregard for the help that they were trying to give him was the first point. Trying to reach him for hours on end. The unanswered calls and text messages. "He's dating Allison, Stiles, not you. Waiting for a text to be answered isn't the end of the world." She reminded him carefully. He found that point to be irrelevant and continued on.

Then it was Scott not dealing with the werewolf slash supernatural business seriously enough. Did he not understand that people's lives were at stake? That this wasn't just a nightmare he was going to eventually wake up from?

And finally how Scott had been the primary cause for the Sheriff ending up in the hospital without realizing it. Which was all that was really bothering him in the first place.

That part Rebecca couldn't agree with and argued that if Scott had known there was going to be some freak accident like that he would have stopped it from happening. But Stiles was too irritated to see the big picture and she was sure the quarrel between the boys would last at least a week or so.

Maybe more than twenty-four hours?

But by the lunch bell, she spotted the boys walking together in the hallway discussing a plan of action to control Scott's urges before he was forced to accept Derek's help. She found that ridiculous and for some reason still trusted Derek on some level. Yes, he was crass, had no tact, acted like an indignant eight year old, and was always scowling, but he knew more about the werewolf stuff than all of them put together. A relevant fact that neither of them would admit freely.

She wondered if Derek would consider adjusting his attitude slightly in the future to make himself more trustworthy, but figured that was doubtful.

After just barely dodging another encounter with Matt, who she noticed was trying to get her attention at the opposite end of the crowded hallway, Rebecca was dragged away by Stiles as he quickly explained the plan. It wasn't like she had a choice in the matter. Lydia and Allison had already gone home and she had no ride. Hence the goal that involved a license and car (preferably blue with black interior and a purple fuzzy cover for the steering wheel). Nothing too specific.

"What did _he_ want?" Stiles asked her as they headed towards the back door of the gym. A man parked his truck and headed over to a group of friends crowded around it. Scott still looked unsure of the plan at hand and was trailing behind them. Rebecca noted the annoyed tone of her brother's voice when he emphasized the word he, referring to Matt.

"Nothing." Rebecca huffed, more than a little annoyed herself by him. She really didn't want to even talk about. "He keeps asking me out." Stiles rolled his eyes at the thought and shot her a disapproving look. "I said no." She explained curtly.

Scott giggled a little and slung his arm around her shoulder. "He isn't bothering you is he?" The question wasn't exactly without humor. The grin widened on his face. She nudged his side. "I can handle Matt Daehler."

"Let the poor guy down easy." Scott advised and wondered why they were doing this again. The lacrosse field earlier with the duct tape was humiliating enough, and now he was waiting for the next stage of Stiles' experiment to begin.

"What exactly are we doing?" Rebecca asked when they stopped a few feet from the parked truck.

"All in good time." Stiles responded, already pleased with himself. He held out Scott's keys to him. "Now stand right there. Hold up the keys like so. You're already doing great. Whatever happens just think about Allison. Try to find her voice like you did at the game and for the love of God do not get angry. I repeat: Do. Not. Get-"

"-angry. Okay." Scott finished, suspiciously of this already.

Stiles turned on his heels and strolled towards the truck. He left a long scratch on the side with his own keys and stopped near the group of guys.

Rebecca gaped and shared a look of terror with Scott, who was frozen in place with his keys dangling from one hand.

"They're going to kill him, Stiles!" Rebecca whispered.

Stiles motioned for her to stand near him. "Let me work my magic, please." He demanded and put his hands on top of his head in mock surprise. "Hey, dude! What do you think you're doing to that truck, bro?"

The truck owner looked over at them and then at Scott with the keys. His eyes widened in horror, slowly realizing what was happening and the possible fate that awaited him.

"What the hell?!" The guy shouted and moved towards Scott furiously. He hid the key behind him and immediately started backing up. As soon as he reached him, the guy pulled back his fist and punched Scott square in the face.

Stiles made a surprised sound and Rebecca quickly hid her face against his shoulder. "Oh my God. Wow. That was unexpected. Wasn't expecting... that..." She heard him say.

Scott lunged at the guy angrily and he shoved him to the ground. His friends converged on him in a matter of seconds, punching and kicking at Scott's body to disable him. Rebecca stared down at the phone when it started to beep constantly and noticed it was passing one hundred.

"Stay calm. Stay calm." Stiles whispered like a mantra to his friend and then Scott was kicked right in the groin. They heard him groan loudly. "Oh, that's not okay. Come on, buddy."

When Scott put his arm over his face in an attempt to protect himself, struggling to keep his anger in check, Rebecca had seen enough. He was getting the crap kicked out of him and it was beyond horrible to watch. Knowing that her size made it easier to stay undetected, she moved rapidly towards one of the men's backs.

"Get off of him!" She screamed and jumped onto his back, curling her legs tightly around his midsection. She hoped all of her squirming and punches to the stomach would make him off balance enough to move away from Scott. He staggered back a bit, caught off guard, and moved back and forth to shake the girl off.

"Are you nuts?!" She heard him shout with confusion. Her death grip on him tightened, letting the man know that yes, she might be, and he thrashed around harder. Good to know the daily jogging was paying off.

"Stop! Stop it right now!" An angry voice rang out. Mr. Harris. Out of all the people to notice them, why did it have to be him? Rebecca easily dropped from the guy's back and Stiles stopped next to her to quickly check for any injuries that needed immediate attention. He didn't find any.

She brushed herself off and the guy glared at her as he and his friends ran off. She called him a few choice names under her breath when Stiles showed her the phone. They all smiled knowingly. Scott's heart rate had gone down.

"I did it." Scott muttered with a small smile.

"Well, whatever it was that you did Mr. McCall, I hope it was worth it, because the three of you will be joining each other in detention."

**-X-X-**

"Only thing is... you can't come."

"What? Why?"

Stiles shrugged and pulled on his jacket. "Derek said and he sounded serious, so yeah. Not exactly itching to get on his bad side. That's assuming I'm not already on it."

Derek could be such a jackass.

One minute Rebecca was playing a video game with Stiles on the couch, and the next Scott was telling him over the phone that they had to meet Derek at the school to catch the alpha. "Yeah, yeah, I'll be there in fifteen. What? Um... okay? No, I guess not. I'll tell her." Stiles walked a few feet away from Rebecca. "Whoa... wait, what did he say exactly?" His body stiffened and he glanced back at her briefly before hanging up.

Stiles was told that she was not under any circumstances to come with him. Derek had made that very clear to Scott and even said she was not to step foot on school property that night or else.

He didn't elaborate further.

She called Lydia and Allison and was annoyed to find that they were both occupied. Alone again. She called Danny and talked to him for about half an hour about his date, which according to him went more than okay. They were seeing each other again next weekend and he invited her to come out with them. She accepted, relieved that she'd have something to do.

When a very shaken Stiles returned, she was semi-glad that she hadn't attended the alpha slaying party. They all had gotten trapped in the school and now Derek was on the run from the police after being named as the person who did it. He also mentioned that Allison broke up with Scott for putting them all at risk and he was devastated.

**-X-X-**

Scott ignored phone calls and texts for the next few days and Stiles decided that they needed to get him drunk. Scott didn't exactly agree with that assessment, but came out anyway to get out of the house.

Rebecca was able to swipe three bottles of various liquor from the cabinet in the kitchen easily. It's not like their Dad would notice (any time soon, at least).

"You're a mad genius." Stiles commented, taking two of the bottles from her as they all got out of the jeep. Scott was still sulking and trudged slowly behind them.

Rebecca linked arms with him and handed over the bottle she had chosen for him. He took it gratefully, but didn't seem that interested in getting drunk. Though Stiles was overly excited about getting his mind off of Allison. Maybe now he'd focus on more important things like staying alive.

"We shouldn't be out here." Scott complained. Stiles scoffed in response and found an area where they could sit. "I'm serious. My Mom is in a constant state of freak out from what happened at the school."

"Count your lucky stars that your Mom isn't the Sheriff, okay? Be _really_ grateful." Stiles countered and shared a knowing look with Rebecca.

"Screw both of you for listening to Derek and not letting me come with by the way." Rebecca added and opened her bottle of grapefruit flavored vodka.

"Next time we're in a potentially life threatening situation, I'll save you a seat." Stiles raised his bottle. "Back to the task at hand. When your best friend gets dumped-"

"I didn't get dumped, Stiles. We're taking a break." Scott corrected through gritted teeth.

"Sorry." Stiles apologized. "When your best friend gets told by his girlfriend that they're taking a break, you get him drunk."

"And you totally got dumped." Rebecca told him and took a seat on one of the rocks.

"Did you talk to Allison? What did she say?" Scott questioned frantically. Rebecca rolled her eyes and acted like she had no clue what he was talking about.

But yes, she had talked to Allison that morning and she was more upset than he was, and definitely still had feelings for him. But it wasn't the time to get into that. Scott needed to forget about her for one night.

Seeing as though they were both lightweights, it took Rebecca and Stiles a very short time to get sloppy drunk. Scott however was still unaffected by the alcohol and all he could do was watch and listen to the siblings embarrass themselves.

"Dude, you know." Stiles slurred from the ground. "She's just one girl. There are so many. There are so many other girls to see."

Rebecca was still working on wandering back to the rock where Scott was sitting. "Are you still talking about Lydia?" She chuckled and almost stumbled over Stiles.

"Ow! God!" He fumed, cradling the hand she had stepped on.

"So..rry. So testy." She hiccuped. When she almost tripped again, Scott reached out to steady her with his hand on her hip. He grabbed her hand so she could make it to the ground. She craned her neck to smile up at him. "Thanks, hero wolf."

"There are blonde ones and red and brown ones and blue ones... so many other girls like those girls in the sea." Stiles trailed off.

"Fish in the sea." Scott grinned.

"Fish? Why are you talking about fish?"

"Because he's a fisherman." Rebecca snorted, laughing at her own joke.

Stiles waved her off dismissively to continue his explanation. "I love girls. I love them. Especially ones with strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, five foot three..."

Rebecca rolled her eyes dramatically. "Might their names all be LYDIA MARTIN?!"

"Hey, how did you know I was talking about.. about... what was I talking about?" Stiles asked himself out loud, more confused now than before.

Rebecca looks down at her legs extended in front of her. "I don't get why everyone says I'm so small. I'm as tall as a tree trunk. Look! My legs are like trees."

Scott laughed at her. "You are kind of small, Becs."

Stiles pointed at his friend's almost still full bottle accusingly. "Hey, you're not happy. Take a drink."

"I don't want anymore." Scott sighed.

Rebecca held up her Vodka bottle to him. "Have some of mine. It's clear like water, but it's not water." She and Stiles both busted up laughing at that. Rebecca leaned her head back on Scott's leg tiredly. "Scotty, don't be sad."

"Maybe it's like not needing your inhaler anymore, you know?" Stiles inquired. Leave it to him to still have theories when he was plastered. "Maybe you can't get drunk as a wolf. Which sucks. A lot." Stiles added and then turned to Rebecca thoughtfully. "Am I drunk?"

"You're wasted. Both of you." Scott answered and Stiles high fived Rebecca in response.

"Oh, come on dude, I know it feels bad... it hurts... I know. Well, I don't know actually, but-"

Rebecca nodded in agreement. "It sucks. I walked in and he was doing... with her... and I couldn't believe it and then I left and said... I never want to see you... Em-bry... and then he did it and... it hurt for a second, but then I couldn't feel anything."

Scott could have sworn he heard her start to cry and glanced down at the top of the blonde's head. "Who are you talking about?" He asked curiously.

She either didn't hear him or didn't want to answer. "Matt's okay, but I don't like him so much... he's weird and he looks at me when I'm not looking at him with his eyes and... hmm. I don't want to talk to Matt anymore." She finally looked up at Scott who was still staring down at her worriedly. "Do I have to talk to him?"

"Not if you don't want to." Scott answered seriously.

"Will you tell him not to talk to me anymore?" She asked.

Scott nodded silently, making a mental note. Satisfied, Rebecca went back to her drink. Stiles was still in his own little world, head spinning. "As much as being broken up hurts, being alone is way worse." He announced and as quickly as the words came out someone towered above him and took the bottle from his hands.

"Well, look at these three getting their drink on." said the man with the backwards hat. His eyes moved to Rebecca. "Pick her up on the way?"

She reached for the bottom of Scott's hoodie.

"Give it back." Scott demanded.

"What's that little man?"

"He said give it back." Rebecca repeated for him. The guy reached down and roughly grabbed the bottle out of her hands. "I wasn't finished with that, asshole!"

Both of them laughed at her. Scott stood up, fists clenching at his sides. "I want both of the bottles."

"Scott, maybe we should just go." Stiles chimed in.

"You brought me here to get me drunk, Stiles. I'm not drunk yet." Scott responded darkly, staring down both men. One of them chuckled, took a drink, and ogled Rebecca again. "More than welcome to share this with me. I like 'em young."

Rebecca's face wrinkled in disgust. "Dream a little bigger and maybe it'll actually happen, pig."

"Don't look at her like that." Scott warned, getting in the man's face. His eyes turned to a bright shade of yellow and his claws suddenly came out. "Crap." Rebecca muttered and felt Stiles scoot closer to her.

"Scott?" Stiles asked, trying to calm him down.

"Give me. The bottle. Of Jack." Scott demanded in a deep, throaty voice. The man slowly handed it over, terrified, and ran off with his friend.

They all stumbled back to the jeep, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. Rebecca balanced herself against the door, feeling queasy.

"Please tell me that was because of the break up or 'cause tomorrow's the full moon?" Stiles said.

Scott sighed in response and helped him into the passenger seat. Rebecca lurched forward and walked to the edge of the woods to throw up. She stayed bent over, waiting for something to come out of her throat. But nothing did.

"What are you doing?" Stiles called, poking his head out of the car.

"Dying." Rebecca said to the ground when Scott's footsteps stopped behind her. "If I do this long enough the water will come out of my mouth."

"Come on." Scott gently took hold of her arm and pulled her towards the car. She stumbled over nothing and almost fell twice. "Whoops! Whoopsey." She let go of Scott, trying to stand up straight. "Just, you guys can leave me here. I'll sleep on the ground and walk home."

Scott crossed his arms over his chest, exasperated. "Where's your home?"

Rebecca pointed to the woods in the opposite direction. "That way. I knows... I know where my home is."

Scott stifled a laugh and quickly hooked an arm around her waist, leading her to the car, before she could protest any further. "You're really muscly." She felt around for the muscles in Scott's arm before he lifted her into the backseat, uncomfortable with the gesture. "Don't tell my Dad because he'll be so mad at me." She mumbled, lying across the seat.

"Going home now, yeah?" Stiles asked after Scott slammed the back door.


	15. Retail Therapy

**AUTHOR NOTE:** I'm going to be skipping around and maybe changing some things in the timeline from here on out in the story. Trying to get to the formal so the relationship between Isaac/Rebecca can be established sooner. :)

**-X-X-**

The long winded dream ended with a sudden bright light and light stomping when Rebecca's eyes squinted open. She groaned, cursed under her breath, and rolled over onto her side. Her head felt like it was going to split open any second and spill brain matter all over the purple sheets.

Slowly realizing that the light was coming from the now open curtains and the light stomping from a person, her eyes searched the room for the source and found Stiles, who looked worse than she did. If that was possible.

"Never... drinking... again." Rebecca said to herself. Truer words had never been spoken and she meant them. The pain was sharp and unbearable.

The alarm clock said six-thirty. That couldn't be right. "The cops are still looking for him. Go away." She mumbled, only half convinced she wasn't dreaming this up. But a blue cup appeared on her nightstand and something heavy laid down at her feet.

"Unfortunately, I'm going to have to disagree with you. School's open. They gave up trying to find him. Sourwolf escapes justice again."

"Someone has to actually commit a crime for justice to be escaped, Stiles."

"What does that have to do with-"

"You said it wasn't him in the school."

"Forgot you were the president and only member of the Free Derek Hale fanclub." Her brother sighed.

"Shut up." Rebecca said irritably and cringed when she caught him scratching his butt over his plaid boxers like no one else was in the room. Her limp fingers curled around the cup to peek inside. "Dude, what is this?" She asked, nose crinkling at the awful smell.

Stiles moved into a fetal position, holding his stomach. "Drink it. Mine's still kicking in. Slowly."

"It's green and pink sludge! I'm not drinking this! What _is_ it?"

"Will you please lower your voice?" He begged slowly. "I googled homemade hangover remedy and that sludge was the first thing to come up that we had all the ingredients for. Supposedly, the Kardashians make it all the time and it's very popular in Europe."

"We're not European." She reminded him.

"We could be."

Desperate to make the pain stop or at least subside, Rebecca grabbed two Advil from her drawer, held her nose, and downed half of the drink. At this point there was nothing to lose but more brain cells. She fell back onto the pillow, shielding her eyes from the harsh sunlight. "If you ever see me pick up another drink again, please just put me out of my misery."

Stiles groaned in response. She reached for her cell phone to check text messages.

**(6:21 a.m.) Still alive? ;O/ - SM **

**(6:24 a.m.) Who's Embry? - SM**

Rebecca's breathing slowed and she frantically tried to remember every little detail from last night. Mostly what she had said. How did Scott know about Embry?

"Ugh." Stiles moaned dramatically. "It's the full moon."

**-X-X-**

Derek came out of hiding and showed up at Scott's a few days later. Now he and Stiles were trying to find out a (subtle) way to get the necklace Allison was always wearing. Rebecca made a few attempts, but nothing worked. The symbol was something Derek recognized. Jackson acting like an ass and threatening to steal Allison from Scott also wasn't helping matters.

Now Rebecca watched from her locker as the jock strap spoke to Lydia, who was holding up her phone in a confused manner, in the middle of the hallway. Judging from the redhead's body language the conversation wasn't going well. Lydia's eyes darted around at the passing students self consciously, trying to keep her composure. But it was starting to slip.

"And you're just about the deadest." Rebecca heard Jackson say and gritted her teeth at the flippant way it flew out of his mouth.

Lydia looked like she was going to lose it. "Are you breaking up with me?"

"Dumping actually. I'm dumping you." Jackson confirmed with a smile and turned away to leave. Lydia suddenly grabbed his jacket sleeve to pull him back. Her face was more confident. "Dumped by the co-captain of the lacrosse team. I wonder how many minutes it will take for me to get over that?" She spat and Rebecca suddenly remembered that Stiles had been made first line because of Greenberg, which was still unbelievable to her in more ways than one.

Jackson shrugged indifferently at Lydia's insult, blew her a kiss, and left her standing there alone.

"Wait, seconds, actually, seconds!" Lydia called after him. She looked around to make sure no one was still paying attention to the fight and raced out of the school towards the parking lot. Rebecca hesitated, assuming she wanted to be alone, but caved and followed Lydia to her car.

They sat there silently for a few minutes. Lydia was already crying quietly. Rebecca had told her twice to stop apologizing, but she kept doing it. Showing weakness in front of others seemed to bother her a great deal. "You really didn't have to follow me out here." Lydia mumbled, dabbing at a few tears with a tissue. "As if I wasn't humiliated enough as it is."

"Lydia, _stop_." Rebecca demanded, raising her voice slightly. Lydia looked over at her, surprised. "This isn't your fault. Don't let him do this to you."

Lydia sighed angrily and pinched the bridge of her nose. Hair fell around her pale face and muffled sobs came out as she spoke. Rebecca flinched, not used to seeing her this emotional about anything aside from a missing pair of designer shoes. Maybe she did love Jackson on some level. "I... just can't believe him. We've broken up before, but it's never been anything like that. After everything we've-"

She stopped and quickly glanced at Rebecca from the corner of her eye. Like she was assessing if she could trust her with the information. She sniffled, satisfied for the moment, and continued. "No one knows what he's really like. Jackson's different when no one else is around. When we're alone." She pressed her forehead to the steering wheel.

Rebecca listened to her let out a few haggard breaths. What she wanted to do was tell her what she really thought of Jackson. That he didn't come close to deserving someone as intelligent, beautiful, and apparently as sensitive as her. That he got off on making others feel inadequate because of his own insecurities. But she stayed silent, waiting patiently for her friend to finish.

"But over a t-text message?!" Lydia shouted, eyes furious. "And then he breaks up with me in the middle of the hallway in front of everyone. Making me look like some pathetic idiot who lets her now ex-boyfriend walk all over her!" Lydia shook her head eagerly. "He's not going to get away with this. I could have anyone, you know? Any guy at this school would jump through hoops just to talk to me. No one breaks up with me. I break up with _them_."

Rebecca placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. There was the Lydia Martin she preferred. "Lyd, you can do better."

"So, much better!" Lydia agreed and let out a soft chuckle. "I mean, co-captain... jesus..." She reached into her purse to reapply peach lipgloss, snapped the mirror shut, and took a deep breath to calm her frazzled nerves. Rebecca cocked her head to the side. "I can go if you want to be-"

Lydia's hand shot out to gently grab Rebecca's arm. "-no. You're my only single friend, which means your schedule has been cleared for the rest of the day. I need retail therapy, several diet cokes, and Ryan Gosling." Her eyes narrowed expectantly. "Are you in or are you out?"

Rebecca smiled and gave her a nod in response. Stiles was probably researching who lured Allison to the school during the alpha attack any way. Lydia shook her head, preoccupied, as she backed out of the lot. "Ever notice how Allison's always disappearing?"

"Probably shouldn't have made out with her ex." Rebecca reminded her.

Lydia rolled her eyes dismissively and stepped on the gas a little too hard. "People are too sensitive."

Said the crying girl in the car...

**-X-X-**

Rebecca waved goodbye to Lydia, who was in better spirits for the moment, after she dropped her off at home. She carried a small shopping bag inside and had to take a few steps back after passing the kitchen to believe her own eyes.

Derek was leaned down inspecting the fridge carefully. "It's not polite to stare." He sighed, already knowing she was there.

"And you're the authority on politeness." Rebecca retorted with a chuckle.

"This thing's practically empty."

"Our maid's out of town. There's soda in the bottom left drawer." She was almost afraid to ask the next question on her mind. For all she knew, Derek had broken in for some stupid reason. "Where's Stiles?"

"Upstairs." Derek answered flatly, grabbing a soda. "Where else would he be?" She shrugged, not knowing what to say to that. He eyed her, cracking the drink open. "Does me being here bother you?"

Rebecca crossed her arms over her chest. It was obvious from the tone of his voice that he could care less if it bothered her, so she just shook her head. "Just surprised."

She barged in on Stiles working on his laptop.

"How'd you get home?" He asked.

"Check your texts, boy wonder."

He looked down at his phone and read, "Lydia." His eyes narrowed at the name.

She nodded, not elaborating on the subject. It was awkward enough that Stiles was in love with her friend. "So, last time I checked fugitives were supposed to hide and not seek food and drink. Dad catches him here he's going to arrest him again." Rebecca said, looking over his shoulder. "Did you guys get Allison's necklace?"

"Scott has it. That text someone sent her the night we got trapped in the school was sent from Melissa's computer."

"At the hospital?" Rebecca asked, wide eyed.

"Still trying to find out who."

"Let's go." Derek said impatiently from the doorway. He grabbed his leather jacket from the bed and pulled it on over his broad shoulders.

"Do you need a ride to the game?" Stiles asked.

"Yeah, I'll go with you. Not sure if Lydia's up for it." Stiles eyed her worriedly as he searched for his jacket in the closet. "I'll tell you later."

Rebecca went to her room to change quickly. Derek rolled his eyes at her back, still getting used to the Stilinski siblings being a packaged deal when it came to these outings.


	16. Shopping Bait

They were never going to make it to the game in twenty minutes. Rebecca sighed at the realization, thinking about how disappointed their Dad would be. He never got to see Stiles play, let alone start.

"Yeah, I did." Stiles assured Scott over the phone. "It looks exactly like the drawing."

Derek reached over to yank Stiles' wrist towards him. "Hey, is there something on the back of it? There has to be something. An inscription, an opening, _something_."

Scott argued that there was nothing like that on the necklace. "And where are you? You're supposed to be here. You're first line! You're not gonna play if you're not here to start, Stiles."

"Exactly." Rebecca whispered with an eye roll. She hadn't really been listening while Derek was explaining to Stiles what they were doing at the hospital in the first place. Something to do with his Uncle and the drawing.

Stiles nodded in agreement, frustrated with the whole situation, and took back the phone. "I know. Look if you see my Dad, can you tell him Becs and I will be there, but just a little late? Alright, thanks."

Derek stared back at her brother incredulously, knowing they weren't going to make it. "You're not gonna make it."

"He knows." Rebecca answered, bored out of her mind. If she had a loaded gun, she would be shooting holes in the car like Sherlock Holmes shot holes in walls.

"And you didn't tell him about his Mom either."

"Not until we find out the truth."

"Okay, seriously, we've been sitting here for forever." Rebecca finally snapped and stepped out of the car onto the pavement to stretch her legs. They were starting to cramp.

After walking in circles a few times, she looked up at a loud bump from inside the car. Derek had slammed Stiles' head into the steering wheel and was berating him, pointing to the hospital. Stiles mumbled angrily under his breath and climbed out.

"Really?" She asked, glaring at Derek.

"He knows why." was all he said.

Rebecca walked towards the hospital with Stiles as he held a hand to his forehead with a pained expression. "Danny?"

"It's not like I told him to hit on Derek. It was funny at the time." Stiles mumbled. "No sense of humor."

"It took you this long to notice?"

They entered the automatic double doors and right away she could feel something was off. The hospital was eerily quiet aside from the overhead lights buzzing and the hallways were practically empty. It was like a haunted house. "What exactly are we looking for in the creepiest hospital ever?" She asked.

Stiles didn't seem to realize anything was weird about the place. He took his time looking inside rooms and down other hallways. "Derek's Uncle's nurse. But I don't see or hear anyone anywhere." He said, peeking behind the nurses station.

Rebecca looked in some of the rooms behind the reception desk that were all dark and empty. Stiles pulled out his phone and called Derek. "No. I can't find her." He said and pointed into the next hallway. "Check down there."

Only more dark, empty rooms around the corner. Big surprise. Then she heard Stiles call her name in a low voice like he was trying to stay quiet. Concerned, she hurried back towards him, assuming he'd found someone or something.

"You must be Stiles." Rebecca stopped at the unfamiliar voice. Her back pressed against the wall and an older man with half a burned face poked his head around the corner to face her. "And who might you be?" Peter asked softly, nostrils flaring.

Rebecca gaped, frozen in place as she stared back at him. The way he was taking in her scent like there was no tomorrow wasn't exactly putting her at ease. He stepped out of the way for her to walk past him back to Stiles. A woman stood in a nurse's uniform at the other end of the hall.

"What are you two doing here?" The nurse asked, but didn't seem all that interested in an answer. She felt Stiles' hand curl around hers protectively. His eyes darted around to find the easiest exit. The only one was past the crazy looking woman. "Visiting hours are over."

Stiles moved back with Rebecca, gripping her hand tighter, and looked between Peter and the nurse. "You and him... he..."

"Don't point at them." Rebecca whispered frantically.

"Oh my... and he's the..." Stiles said, working it all out in his mind. "Oh my God, we're gonna die."

Shit, they were alphas.

Rebecca shook her head after a moment. "Yeah, there's no way I'm dying in an old folks home. Sorry." She pulled Stiles towards the nurse as fast and as hard as she could to knock her out of the way. The woman stood in a readied stance to block their path, but Derek did it first. He elbowed her in the face without much effort, sending her to the floor.

"That's not nice. She's my nurse." Peter informed him.

"She's a psychotic bitch helping you kill people." Derek glared at him, eyes turning blue. "Get out of the way." He ordered.

Stiles sighed, more put out than afraid. "Oh, damn." He yanked Rebecca down with him and they scrambled away as Derek and Peter started to fight viciously. Rebecca stopped to cover herself when Derek's body flew into the wall, almost clipping her. "Oh!" She shouted, curling into a ball.

Stiles pulled her more aggressively while panting and yelling. "Move faster!"

"I'm trying!"

He flinched when they ran into the nurse's body and Rebecca pulled him to his feet, knowing they'd be faster that way. By the time they reached the double doors again and ran out to the jeep, Derek was flying through a glass wall.

They closed themselves inside the car and Stiles locked the doors with trembling hands.

"He just saved our asses in there! We can't leave him." Rebecca shouted when he started the ignition. "The guy's going to kill him."

"Family issues. He's his Uncle." Stiles argued.

"Who threw him into plate glass and is trying to murder him as we speak!"

"Okay, why did you think we ran to the car except to drive away?! Neither of us are going back in there. Derek can handle himself." Stiles said, tires screeching as he backed out of the lot.

Rebecca huffed, leaning against the window to watch the hospital disappear in the distance. It pissed her off that every time there was any kind of danger, Derek was almost always the one who swooped in to get them out of it, and then was left for dead or to be arrested. "Dad's going to kill you." She said, glancing at the clock. The game was over by now.

"Least of our problems." Stiles said, driving faster towards the school. "Think of a good lie. You're better at it."

He was right about that. Most of the lies she conjured up were quite elaborate, but simple enough to sound believable to anyone. She wracked her brain. "Is the fair in season?"

"He'd never buy that for tonight, but write it down. Could be a future prospect." He grinned and tried Scott on his cell for the second time. Still wasn't answering. "Probably just getting off the field. We need to tell him what happened before Peter leaves the hospital."

**-X-X-**

Rebecca didn't understand how Lydia wasn't stumbling over herself. Her height must have had a lot to do with it.

This wasn't the plan.

Lydia called her that morning to confirm a shopping trip that Rebecca either didn't know about or had blocked out. They were shopping for winter formal dresses. A dance which she did not currently have a date to and since Lydia and Jackson were on the outs, taking him up on his offer to find her one seemed ridiculous.

She had no interest in dancing in public and flat out just didn't want to go. But Lydia was insistent and Rebecca knew if she said no to her there would be an uproar. Going stag wouldn't be so bad. She'd just hang out with Danny and his date since Scott wasn't going to be there because of his grades.

"We'll pick you up at one." Lydia told her, still not taking no for an answer under any circumstances. She was like a redheaded gestapo.

Rebecca agreed and after she hung up, Scott and Stiles were waiting in her doorway with puppy eyes times two. They saw the shopping trip as an opportunity to draw Peter out again. A few days ago, he tried to take Melissa out on a date to convince Scott to join his pack.

This was enough to scare Rebecca into agreeing to whatever plan the boys had. The last thing she wanted was for anything to happen to Scott's mom.

"So, let me see if I'm understanding this brilliant plan." She said, arms crossed.

"Did I say brilliant?" Scott asked.

"I believe you did use that word a few times." Stiles answered, turning the baseball cap on his head backwards.

"You want to use me as alpha bait." That wasn't a question. It was what they were clearly asking of her.

Scott grimaced. "Bait's a strong word."

"And a bad choice because Derek said that-" Stiles started until Scott cut him off. "-for all we know he's with Peter now, so the warning is irrelevant. It's not like we know what it means."

"Yeah, but he said her scent could-"

"It's the only option we have right now, Stiles." Scott interjected. "This is my mother we're talking about. We'll both be there. It'll be fine."

Rebecca put her hand up. "What did Derek say about my scent?"

Scott stared at the floor, debating whether or not it was smart to tell her. Rebecca leaned back on the bed, annoyed that they had been keeping whatever it was from her.

Stiles nudged Scott's shoulder. "It might be better if she knows everything."

"We agreed that-"

"I know, but-"

"_Might_?" Rebecca interrupted. "Look, I'm not six years old, so just tell me... or I'll murder you both, okay?"

"We didn't want to scare you." Stiles explained.

"Ugh! Stiles, I swear to _God_."

"Derek didn't want you to come with us that night at the school when we were trying to catch the alpha because you attract them... and other wolves... and apparently every other supernatural thing. Whatever that means." Scott told her.

Stiles looked extremely uncomfortable with where the conversation was headed. Scott waited patiently for a response.

"Sorry, maybe I'm missing something, but doesn't that mean I could have been helpful?" Rebecca asked, unconcerned. There wasn't exactly anything she could do about the way she smelled.

"Yes and no. He also said that you smelled like an alpha mate and there could be a problem with controlling the urge to turn you if the alpha did show up. It wasn't safe for you."

"We all agreed." Stiles added.

"Nice to know my well being is being agreed on without my knowledge." Rebecca spat irritably. They were both unbelievable.

"I told you this was a bad plan, Scott. Can't we think of something else? Protect your Mom some other way?" Stiles asked, nervously pacing the floor. "And why aren't you more freaked about this? Some alpha out there wants to make you their mate, which is like slave trade, but way worse... so much worse."

"Derek said their might be a problem with control. Keyword being might. Not a definite." Rebecca told him, trying to make the best out of the revelation.

"Might's more than enough for me, Becs." Stiles said, running a hand through his buzzed hair.

"I'm as worried as you are, Stiles, but Peter's not going to shift in a public place with all of those witnesses around. He's not going to risk exposure for any of us. And if Derek's with him-"

"Which he's not." Rebecca chuckled, still refusing to believe it until he told them to their faces. "There's no way Derek's team Peter after he tried to kill him. It's some kind of a mind game."

"Glad you have so much confidence in him." Stiles griped and sat on her computer chair, tired from pacing.

"If you don't want to do this, it's okay. We'll think of something else." Scott said, hands resting on her shoulders. But she could tell by the look on his face that he was really worried about his mother, and had to at least try to make the plan work.

"No. I'll do it." Rebecca agreed, giving him a small smile.

Scott smiled back at her gratefully. "You won't be alone." He assured her. "I'll be hiding."

"And I'll be... doing... other stuff. Hanging out, having a stroke, scoping out the perimeter. Things like that." Stiles sighed.

Rebecca looked down at him. "You worry too much, big brother."

"Yeah, well, I have to worry for both of us since you don't worry at all."

As far as Rebecca was concerned there was nothing to worry about yet. She wasn't going to hide out in her bedroom because of some threat that hadn't even happened. Peter didn't turn her at the hospital and he easily could have before Derek got there.

She was still following Allison through the woods with Lydia, who looked really annoyed and uncomfortable. Neither of them were dressed for this part of the outing. Allison of course had come prepared with appropriate shoes and carried a large bag at her side.

Rebecca and Lydia's eyes widened when the brunette stopped to pull out a bow and arrow. Rebecca had seen the weapon at her house once hanging in the garage. She hoped this errand wasn't a weird hunting thing. If it was, she was so going back to the car.

"This is what you wanted to show us?" Lydia asked meekly, clearing her throat.

"When you said you needed to stop and run an errand before shopping, a five mile hike through the woods wasn't what we were expecting."

"Thank you." Lydia mouthed silently.

"We didn't walk five miles. One and a half at the most." Allison retorted, continuing to walk ahead of them.

Rebecca pulled her hair back into a ponytail. "The sale also ends at three if that's any kind of incentive."

"It's not." Lydia responded quickly. "And if that's an attempt at talking me out of buying you a fabulous dress, then you're wasting your breath.

"Wouldn't dream of it." Rebecca smirked.

Lydia looked around, trying to catch up with Allison. "You don't think the mountain lions are still on the loose?"

Allison held up the weapon in response and stopped when they reached a tree she found acceptable to practice on. "Before I forget, Lyd, I wanted to ask if you're okay with something. Jackson asked me to the winter formal."

Rebecca felt Lydia's whole body react without looking at her.

"Did he?"

"Just as friends. But I wanted to make sure you were okay with it first."

"Sure." Lydia answered, unsure. "As long as it's just friends."

Allison nodded and released a few arrows at the tree.

"Hate to be the one to bring this up, but does Jackson know how to be friends with girls?" Rebecca asked.

Lydia's eyes closed briefly to compose herself. That was a no.

**-X-X-**

"Nothing's wrong." Allison said for the fourth time as they stood on the escalator at Macy's. "I just have a lot on my mind."

"You could smile at least. I'm buying you a dress." Lydia scoffed and shot a warning look at Rebecca. "Both of you."

"Have to admit as far as apologies go, that's more than I expected." Allison smiled.

Rebecca shook her head at Lydia. "You haven't done anything to me yet, which means you're still not buying me a dress."

"Yes I am and you're going to love it." Lydia smiled sweetly at her. "Arguments are my thing. I always win them."

Rebecca gave her a salute, giving up, and suddenly felt eyes on her. From where, she didn't know, but it felt like someone was watching. She glanced around, but didn't spot anyone suspicious.

"You okay?" Allison asked, noticing.

"Mm-hmm." Rebecca nodded and suddenly wished that Derek was around. Not that she didn't trust Scott completely, but two werewolves were better than one, and she had a feeling that Peter was already in the store.

"It means you're going to cancel on whatever dumb, roided up jock you said yes to and you're going to go with somebody else." Allison told Lydia seriously and pointed to Stiles over by the perfume counter.

Good, that meant Scott was already there.

"Doesn't he drive that blue... thing?" Lydia asked, horrified.

"The one and only heap jeep. And he'll say yes immediately, by the way. My brother's a sure thing." Lydia's eyes widened at her choice of words. "So to speak."

"You need to go out with someone nice for once." Allison continued. "Step in the right direction."

"Well, it wouldn't be a date." Lydia clarified to them and to herself. She looked like she was giving it serious thought. Most likely an attempt to make Jackson jealous, but Stiles would still be more than thrilled.

"I don't even have a _non_-date." Rebecca muttered. Allison made a sad face and put an arm around her. Unfortunately, it didn't make her feel any better.

Lydia released a breath and left them to walk over to Stiles. She stopped short when he inhaled perfume and sneezed everywhere, realizing the method of transportation was the least of her problems. Rebecca looked away, mortified.

"Didn't Matt ask you?" Allison questioned, sifting through one of the dress racks.

If Rebecca never heard the name Matt Daehler again, it would be too soon. "Like seventy-five times since Monday. Over a hundred it we're counting texts." She examined a purple dress that was so short her father would have some kind of panic attack if she stepped one foot out of the house wearing it. "But it's too weird. One of those he likes me a lot more than I like him things."

"He does seem a little... off." Allison agreed and held up a red and white dress with black trim against her body. "Yay or nay?"

Rebecca stood back to take a better look. "It's cute. You're lucky you have the boobs to fill it out. Unlike others."

Allison picked out a pale blue dress with white silk tied around the torso. "This would look amazing on you, Becs. Definitely the one."

"I've only looked at three dresses since we got here."

"Try it on."

Rebecca held the dress against her front in the mirror. It was really beautiful, but her confidence level was at zero. "Yeah... it's nice." She muttered.

Allison draped a few dressed over her arm. "Cheer up. I'm gonna go try a few of these on."

Rebecca wandered over to the far right corner of the dress section, hoping to find one that was more her style. Which was a muted color, thin straps or strapless, and Dad-friendly. The last thing that she needed was to be put on lockdown over a dress.

She picked through a few possibilities: Light green, violet, black, off-white. A cute light blue strapless. But the one Allison had picked out before still stuck out and she gave it another look. It brought out her eyes and she smiled, remembering that she had killer three inch heels from last season to go with it.

The top of Lydia and Stiles' heads disappeared towards the dressing room when she started to call out for a second opinion. She started to follow, but a quick movement at the corner of the mirror caught her eye. Peter was leaned against the rack, staring right at her.

"She was right. That's the one." He said, nodding at the dress clutched in her hand. He stopped next to her. "But you knew that. Nice to see you again. I was concerned that we weren't properly introduced at the hospital the other night."

Rebecca looked down at her purse on the ground where her phone was.

"You seem nervous." He observed.

"No. I'm not. I mean, I'm always a little nervous when I shop. Never been a fan of shopping. Sometimes my face makes me look more nervous than I actually am." She rambled.

"I didn't catch your name."

"Um-" Rebecca stammered and had apparently forgotten how to stand. The bones in her legs disintegrated with every word. "Rebecca. And you're Peter?"

"Guilty." He smiled and took the dress from her to hold it up to her body. "This really would look lovely on you. The color matches your eyes and skin tone. Perfect skin as a matter of fact. Very fair."

"Oh, thanks, that a very... nice thing to say." Rebecca said and took a very intentional step away from him towards her purse. If she could just get away with grabbing her phone without him noticing. But that seemed impossible. Her eyes scanned the store for Scott, but he was nowhere.

"Trust me, Rebecca." Peter decided to close the space between them to hand her back the dress. His hand lingered over the skin on her neck and she watched his nostrils flare like they had at the hospital. Only harder now. "I have a unique perspective on the subject."

"The subject of what?"

Peter slowly pulled her hand towards him. "Do you mind?" Which he obviously didn't seeing as though he was already touching her. He compared the color of the fabric to her skin's shade. "See?"

When he asked his next question, the color drained from her face. "You're not here alone are you?"

Technically, yes, she thought bitterly. She was there alone because her brother and his idiot werewolf best friend, who were supposed to be looking out for her, were nowhere to be found.

"Shopping for dresses with friends?" He asked.

Technically, yes, she thought again. But these supposed friends had also disappeared. The term '_friends don't let friends be accosted by creepy old men in public who want to turn you into their mate slash possible sex slave for life'_ meant nothing anymore.

All Rebecca could do was nod. She would have just run, but the bones in her legs were gone now.

"High school dance?"

"Winter formal." Rebecca answered shakily. "There's not a huge difference though."

"I see."

Then an employee announced over the loudspeaker that a blue Mazda with Allison's license plate was being towed in the parking lot.

Saved.

"Oh, God. That's actually my friend Allison's car. She might not have heard it from the dressing room." Rebecca said, quickly grabbing the dress back from him, and ran towards the other end of the store.

Allison and Lydia were commenting on each other's dress choices when Rebecca poked her head in. Stiles was lounging in a chair, bored out of his mind, but immediately shot up when he saw her.

"Hey." Stiles said, worry etched on his face.

"Allison, I think your car's being towed."

"What? Why?!" She exclaimed and ran inside one of the rooms to throw her clothes back on. "I parked in a normal spot."

"They didn't say. Just heard it on the PA system."

Rebecca jumped when she felt a hand on her arm and came face to face with a very worried Scott. He pulled her to the side where Allison and Lydia couldn't see them.

"What happened? Are you- what's wrong?" Stiles asked her, concerned.

"Sorry it took so long." Scott apologized. "I heard everything."

"He was here?" Stiles gulped. "Lydia wanted commentary on every little detail. I was trapped."

"If by he you mean Peter, then yes. He was very much present and accounted for and creeping the hell out of me. I hope your time imagining what Lydia looked like changing into her dresses was memorable."

Stiles blushed slightly, turning his face away.

Scott was still focused intently on Rebecca when her breathing didn't slow down. It was worrying all three of them.

"Did he threaten you?" Stiles asked, a wave of emotion running through him at the thought of Peter trying to hurt her. The worry he felt earlier was quickly turning to anger. "What did he say, Rebecca?"

Scott could tell by the look in her eyes that she was terrified, but was desperately trying to hide it from them. "Do you want to sit down?" He offered.

Rebecca shrugged him off and finally started to breathe again. Being royally pissed off helped. "No. I want to try on this dress like a normal teenager going to a formal." She poked Scott's chest angrily with her index finger. "And if you, Scott McCall, are not waiting in this spot for me when I'm done, I will bludgeon you to death with your lacrosse stick while you sleep. Werewolf or not. Do you understand me?"

Scott quickly nodded.

"I'm so pissed at both of you that prison doesn't sound so bad. I will go to prison for you."

"Dad could probably shave off ten years. If that helps at all..." Stiles commented.

"Hearing witty, irrelevant things does not help me right now."

"I wasn't being wi-" Stiles shut up when Rebecca glared back at him. "Okay, fair enough."

She marched back to the dressing room with Stiles trailing behind. Lydia was waiting for him, already in another dress. "Look who decided to finally return. What about this?" She asked, twirling around a few times.

Stiles helped her carry all of the bags and also her purse when they were done for the day. Not only did Lydia buy a dress, but half of the store as well. Scott walked silently alongside Rebecca, hands shoved in both pockets.

"Still ignoring me?" He asked, leaning down to her. "Becs, you know I never would have asked if I thought-"

"I know." Rebecca stopped him. And in the back of her mind, she did know that Scott would never deliberately put her in a dangerous situation he couldn't get her out of, but that didn't mean she wanted to think about Peter being that close to her again.

"Thank you." Scott said, pulling her into the crook of his arm.

Rebecca's green eyes peered up at him. "Full disclosure from now on though, yes? No more not telling me things to protect me."

He nodded, smirking down at her.


	17. Number 14

Isaac Lahey was beautiful even from across the street fifty feet away.

It wasn't fair.

She hated him already and barely knew him. She knew of him, but they'd never spoken.

Her only goal for the day was to provide Lydia with moral support. That morning, she left another voicemail for Derek, who she'd been trying to reach for days. "Derek this is my fourth voicemail and as much as I love listening to your AC/DC waiting ringtone, the next one that I leave won't be in my reasonably happy voice. Call me back." She growled and threw the phone on the bed.

Rebecca plopped down on the mattress in defeat. Derek avoiding her calls and her brother and Scott avoiding her questions was really pissing her off. She needed to know what was going on with the Peter situation and felt completely shut out. It was like she was living in a glass bubble where no information could get in.

"Don't worry about it." was all she got out of Scott yesterday when he came over to see Stiles.

Peter was the one who approached her. She had every right to know.

Lydia was also having several nervous breakdowns per minute about Allison and Jackson going to the winter formal together. She complained for over an hour on the phone and decided she needed to pick up something she'd left at his house.

"Could you go with me? For moral support, I mean." Lydia asked her nervously. "Obviously I can't ask Allison since they're basically sleeping with each other."

"Lydia, they're _not_ sleeping together."

"Yet." Lydia sighed, annoyed.

"She wouldn't do that to you."

"Yeah, I know." Lydia agreed. "Jackson can be very persuasive though. In more ways than one. I should know."

Rebecca grimaced at the new image in her head. "Way too much information for a Thursday night."

"Will you come?"

"You seriously want me to go with you to Jackson's to pick up a shirt that you're not even sure is there?" Rebecca asked, still confused by the request. Of course, this was Lydia, so she shouldn't have been surprised really.

"I texted him this morning. It's there. He knows we're coming by."

Good to know Jackson was aware of her coming before she was.

Lydia had been in Jackson's house going on ten minutes when she saw Isaac across the street. Her gaze slowly moved from his lanky body frame, to his muscles contracting as he opened the hood of the trash can to lift the garbage bag inside, to his ivory skin bathed in sunlight sticking out of his grey tank top, and finally ended on the small blonde curls that threatened to cover his bright blue eyes.

Why did they have to be _that_ blue?

Why did her brain sound like a middle schooler?

Why was this happening now of all times?

The situation, and yes her attraction to him had become a situation in less than a minute, was so frustrating. She reminded herself again that she. did. not. know. Isaac. Lahey.

Her only recollection of saying more than two words to him was apologizing after bumping into him once after lacrosse practice. She was trying to find Stiles and he was coming off of the field in a rush and only grunted in response anyway.

She always thought of him as one of those quiet kids who no one liked because he was an asshole who thought he was better than everyone. But she never took notice of how gorgeous he was until today.

Rebecca knew it was the last thing she needed, but that didn't stop her from getting out of the car and sitting on the curb. She looked down at her phone, pretending to send a text. Walking over to him was too forward even for her. Seemed like the next best thing.

Isaac looked up briefly as he closed the trash can, noticing her sitting there. She returned the look and realized the his eye was a light shade of purple. He opened his mouth to speak, but just stood there silently, eyes dropping to the ground.

Rebecca grinned, sensing that he was shy. Which was more than kind of adorable.

Then his front door swung open and an older man came out in a rage. She flinched slightly, taking in his imposing stance as he stood face to face with Isaac after dragging him towards the bushes in the yard. He pointed to them and kept yelling in his son's face, berating him.

Isaac's head lowered again and he didn't move when his father violently grabbed his arm hard enough to leave bruises. The boy's head turned and he mumbled something to him. She couldn't hear what they were saying, but it was enough to make her turn away.

By the time she looked again, his father had marched back into the house and slammed the door. Isaac stood helplessly in the middle of the yard for a moment and picked up the hedge trimmers at his feet.

Rebecca hesitated, not knowing if Isaac would feel like talking to anyone after that, but started to cross the street. "You okay?" She asked, stopping at the edge of the yard.

Isaac turned his head, startled.

"It's Isaac, right?"

He looked around to check if she was talking to someone else. "Do I know you?"

"I, um, maybe? I go to Beacon Hills High. I think you're on the lacrosse team with my brother, Stiles." Only she knew he was definitely on the team. Number fourteen.

Isaac shrugged, wiping sweat from his brow. "Guess I've seen you around. You go to all the practices."

"Penance for depending on someone else for transport. Are you sure you're okay? That looked intense with your Dad."

The boy walked towards her, eyes moving briefly to the window to make sure his Dad wasn't watching. "Long week." He muttered uncomfortably.

She pointed to his eye. Isaac answered before she could ask. "I play lacrosse, remember?"

The answer sounded rehearsed, which meant he was probably lying. "Should ease up on the defense then." She smiled at him weakly and looked back at the sound of Lydia clearing her throat. She was already climbing into the car in a huff, looking more annoyed than before. "I should go."

Isaac nodded, scratching the back of his head.

"I'm Rebecca Stilinski by the way."

"Yeah, I, um... might have lied before."

"About which part?"

"I knew who you were." Isaac stated, looking right at her for the first time and for a short moment she couldn't breathe. It was his stupid, beautiful, piercing eyes.

Rebecca put her hands on her hips, desperately trying to mask whatever was going on inside of her. "How come you never talked to me then?"

"You're beautiful? Maybe. Could be why. Plus, you're always with her," He motioned to Lydia in a waiting car, "and she makes me nervous."

"Oh." Rebecca said, cheeks flushing. She felt her face get hot and wished there was a bucket of ice water near by for someone to throw on her. "Lydia makes a lot of people nervous."

"I've noticed."

The horn behind her blared. Rebecca gave Isaac a small wave and started walking to the car, still reeling (and blushing) from the meeting.

"What did he want?" Lydia asked through gritted teeth. Her hands were curled around the steering wheel tight enough for it to snap off.

"Nobody. Some guy from the lacrosse team."

"Lahey. I know. He's lived across the street from he we will never mention again for like ever." Lydia breathed deeply. "I can't believe he asked for his key back again. Like it's my responsibility to find his key that he gave to me a million years ago. Typical... so typical... and desperate. Are you listening to me?"

Rebecca turned her face away when her cheeks heated up again.


End file.
